News on Merit Pay

This post is a part of the Talking Points section on the Teachers Lounge page. These articles discuss current hot topics in education that is the point of much discussion in teachers lounges all across America.

Wow!!! One day after my initial post on Merit based pay, Nora Fleming wrote an article,

Abandoning Performance Pay, that was in Education Week today. Her article described how some schools are turning away from the merit pay systems for one simple reason. 

•  there is a lack of evidence that suggests it is worth the investment

In the models that have been used to experiment with the merit pay, the experiment has been met by a handsome price tag. It is not easy to support the incentive based models and when the research returns with no significant gains, states and local districts are cutting the expenditures. We are living in lean times and so our investments (incentive programs) have to return a significant yield. If not they have to be cut.