Performance Incentives

The concept of pay for performance for public school teachers is growing in popularity and use, and it has resurged to once again occupy a central role in education policy. Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education offers the most up-to-date and complete analysis of this promising—yet still controversial—policy innovation.

Performance Incentives brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts, providing an unprecedented discussion and analysis of the pay-for-performance debate by

• Identifying the potential strengths and weaknesses of tying pay to student outcomes;

• Comparing different strategies for measuring teacher accomplishments;

• Addressing key conceptual and implemen – tation issues;

• Describing what teachers themselves think of merit pay;

• Examining recent examples in Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas;

• Studying the overall impact on student achievement.

Matthew G. Springer is the director of the National Center on Performance Incentives and an assistant professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. He is a coauthor of Modern Education Finance and Policy (2007) and a coeditor of Charter School Outcomes (2007) and Handbook of Research on School Choice (2009).