Choose One

• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• Faculty & Staff
• Alumni
• Parents
• Community & Friends

• Peabody Journal of Education
  • PJE, Volume 84, Issue 3, 2009
  • PJE, Volume 84, Issue 2, 2009
  • PJE, Volume 84, Issue 1, 2009
  • PJE, Volume 83, Issue 4, 2008
  • PJE, Volume 83, Issue 3, 2008
  • PJE, Volume 82, Issue 4, 2007
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Subscription Information

Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 82, No. 4

Abstract

Credentials Versus Performance: Review of the Teacher Performance Pay Research

Michael Podgursky
Department of Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia

Matthew G. Springer
Department of Leadership Policy, and Organizations, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

In this article we examine the economic case for merit or performance-based pay for K-12 teachers. We review several areas of germane research. The direct evaluation literature on these incentive plans is slender; highly diverse in terms of methodology, targeted populations, and programs evaluated; and primarily focused on short-run motivational effects. It is nonetheless fairly consistent in finding positive program effects. The general personnel literature highlights potentially significant selection effects of employee compensation systems. This is particularly relevant for teaching, because a growing body of production function research points to large, persistent, but idiosyncratic differences in teacher productivity. Thus, along with motivation effects, there is potential for substantial positive long run selection effects from teacher performance pay systems. The evaluation literature is not sufficiently robust to prescribe how systems should be designed (e.g., optimal size of bonuses, mix of individual vs. group incentives). However, it is sufficiently positive to support much more extensive field trials, pilot programs, and policy experiments, combined with careful follow-up evaluation.

About The Authors

Michael Podgursky is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he served as department chair from 1995-2005. He has many articles and reports on education policy, teacher quality, and teacher compensation. Federal and state agencies as well as numerous private foundations have supported his work on education. He serves on the board of editors of Education Finance and Policy, and technical advisory boards for numerous education organizations, including the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Research Council, the Institute for Education Sciences, the National Center for Teacher Quality, American Board of Certification of Teacher Excellence, and Mathematica Policy Research. He is a co-investigator at the National Center for Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, and the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the Urban Institute, two IES-funded national research centers.

Matthew G. Springer is a research assistant professor of public policy and education and director of the federally funded NCPI. Professor Springer's research interests involve educational policy issues, with a particular focus on the impact of policy on resource allocation decisions and student outcomes. His current research includes studies of the impact of performance-based incentives on student achievement and teacher turnover, mobility, and quality; the strategic resource allocation decision-making of schools in response to No Child Left Behind; and the impact of school finance litigation on resource distribution. The United States Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, Smith Richardson Foundation, and Texas Education Agency currently fund Professor Springer’s research. He has also served on several advisory committees charged with designing performance-based compensation systems for teachers and/or principals at the state and district level, and conducted analyses of school finance systems in Alaska, Kentucky, Missouri, and South Carolina. Springer received a B.A. from Denison University and his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College.

Return to Current Issue