Does "differentiating" teacher pay (beyond the usual salary schedule) result in Better Teaching and More Learning? Can we use financial incentives to build the teacher force every school leader dreams of: bright stars relentlessly pursuing the all-important data, working 60 hours a week, cheerfully compliant?
Nancy Flanagan, July 16, 2015
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5 min read
A giant dresser on Hamilton Street stands in homage to the furniture industry in downtown High Point, N.C.
To bolster teacher quality, schools systems desperately need to institute variable pay structures that reward educators based on performance and challenging assignments, according to a report released this week by TNTP, a prominent nonprofit teacher-recruitment and policy organization.
The closely-watched system for evaluating teachers and providing bonus pay in the District of Columbia appears to be motivating weak and strong educators alike to higher performance.
The once-vaunted teacher merit-pay plan in Texas will be converted this fall into a state grant program that pays for innovative education initiatives in a few dozen poor schools.
A tentative contract for teachers in the Newark public school system allows for merit pay bonuses funded mainly through a grant from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced the recipients of round four of the Teacher Incentive Fund. The TIF 4 competition has two components: the General TIF Competition and the TIF Competition with a Focus on STEM. The districts and states that secured awards include:
To the Editor: Laura Overdeck, Arthur Levine, and Christopher Daggett are exactly on target in "Rethinking Teacher Compensation" (Aug. 22, 2012). Indeed, we must reassess and front-load how we pay teachers as a first step toward attracting and keeping the most effective candidates. However, front-loading compensation is incomplete.
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