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

More than twenty 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 his tory 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.