The Peril and Promise of Performance Pay: Making Education Compensation Work

More than 20 states and many school districts are currently implementing or considering performance pay plans for teachers. Most of the existing plans are not working. Schools are not improving, teachers and parents are upset, students are being denied the education they deserve, and tax dollars are being wasted - either because the plans are built on faulty assumptions, because they are being implemented poorly, or both. Most policy-makers have not considered the history and past practice of performance pay, have not developed a broad definition of performance around which to build their plans, and don't understand how to implement organizational change.

The Peril and Promise of Performance Pay is the first comprehensive look at the history, assumptions, and recent experience with performance pay for teachers. It provides an invaluable resource for school teachers, administrators, board members, policy makers, and citizens who would like to understand what's behind performance pay, what might work and what will not, and how to build a school improvement effort that includes teacher compensation as one of its strategies.

Donald B. Gratz is a professor, department chair, and graduate director in education at Curry College outside of Boston.