Offering middle-school math teachers bonuses up to $15,000 did not produce gains in student test scores, Vanderbilt University researchers reported Tuesday in what they said was the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay.
The results (pdf) could amount to a cautionary flag about paying teachers for the performance of their students, a reform strategy the Obama administration and many states and school districts have favored despite lukewarm support or outright opposition from teachers' unions.
The U.S. Department of Education has put a great deal of effort into prodding school districts and states to try merit-pay systems as part of its Race to the Top competition, although teachers' unions have often objected on the grounds that they don't have fair and reliable ways to measure performance. In most school districts, teacher pay is based on years of experience and educational attainment levels.
The report's authors, of the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education, stress that theirs is just one approach. The Nashville teachers who hit the mark based on their students' test scores received a bump in their paychecks but no additional mentoring or professional development. Neither their principals nor fellow teachers knew who participated in the experiment or who received bonuses.
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