How Are Rewards Provided to Teachers?
The idea of paying teachers for performance has a long and not very successful history. Despite the persistent public appeal of “merit pay,” teachers continue to be paid mostly by the uniform salary schedule that recognizes only education and experience. Where merit pay has been tried, it has usually failed because of inadequate funding or because the criteria were vague or unrelated to performance (Allan Odden and Carolyn Kelley 1997). However, advocates of standards-based accountability have argued that an information-age economy requires compensation based on demonstrated skills rather than narrowly defined jobs. Odden and Kelley note that today’s teachers have to perform a variety of tasks, each of which requires special expertise, such as teaching, facilitating meetings, coaching, and assessment. Why not compensate them for their expertise in these areas? Odden and Kelley identify two major alternatives to the traditional salary schedule. The first is competency-based pay, which r
