Teacher Quality Group Outlines Essentials for Performance-Pay Success

In the report, Creating a Successful Performance Compensation System for Educators, The Working Group on Teacher Quality has compiled a list of essential components of successful performance pay systems. The group included 11 organizations focused on effective teaching and was led by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, a spin-off of the Milken Family Foundation’s Teacher Advancement Program. Neither national teacher’s union participated in the report’s development.

The groups’ recommendations include using objective measures to evaluate student achievement, conducting professional development on the job, redeveloping evaluations so that they are based on professional standards, and establishing a true career path for teachers.

Improving student achievement

The group says teachers capable of helping students learn more should earn more. It advocates performance pay systems based primarily on student achievement gains at both the school and classroom level.

To ensure that a performance pay system has credibility with educators, it should focus on reliable value-added measures of student performance—how much a student grows academically during the year—rather than whether all students reach a specified achievement level.

The group stresses the need for good communication, which means involving teachers and principals in plan development from the very beginning. Educators should be part of the team that develops the criteria for performance awards. The plan development team must provide ongoing, clear information to educators to help them understand value-added measurements and the criteria they need to meet to earn awards.

The awards should be “significant enough to make a difference to teachers,” at least 5 percent of their salary; and teachers whose students make the biggest gains should get the largest rewards. The group contends that smaller incentives wouldn’t be adequate to help districts recruit and retain top teaching talent.

The group cautions against setting limits on the number or percentage of awards available. It also advises that performance pay systems include a variety of ways to measure teacher excellence to ensure that all teachers can participate, not just those who teach tested subjects or grades: If every teacher plays a part in student achievement gains, they should all earn more.

Getting the details right

Professional development. Any performance-pay system that focuses on teacher quality must include a strong professional development program to provide teachers with the chance to build their skills. The group advises that school schedules be structured to allow time for teacher training during the school day. Teachers should get individual coaching from mentors and master teachers to help them improve their skills. They should also work with their peers to develop collaborative learning communities.

Evaluations. Teacher evaluation systems must be designed to improve instruction. To do that, they must be based on credible, agreed-upon standards of practice. The standards should be research-based and easy to understand and teachers, principals, and other stakeholders should be involved in the design from the ground up. The evaluation itself should provide teachers with constructive feedback to help them do their jobs better.

Teachers should be evaluated several times a year by different evaluators to eliminate concerns about bias or favoritism. Evaluators should gauge a teacher’s impact on student learning in a variety of ways, including informal observation, student achievement growth on formative assessments, and lesson and unit plans. Evaluators must be trained to ensure reliability in ratings from one person to the next.

Career path. Performance-pay systems should include a career path that allows teachers to pursue a variety of positions according to their skills and accomplishments. Inductees would become career teachers as they gain experience. The best career teachers would be called upon to serve as mentor teachers. Veterans who demonstrate the highest level of skill would progress to the ranks of master teachers.

Laying the foundation

For a performance-pay system to be effective, plan developers must ensure that the system will have adequate funding this year, next year, and in 10 years. Educators will be skeptical of the effort if they believe that performance pay might be around one year and gone the next. Developers should put long-term funding in place to increase the plan’s financial sustainability. Also, funds for performance pay should not come at the expense of providing a competitive base salary for teachers.

Teachers who show the ability to raise the achievement of the neediest students should be eligible for larger awards than those available at other schools. Performance awards should also be used to help schools and districts recruit and retain top-notch teachers in shortage areas: math, science, special education, or other teaching positions, according to local needs.

The plan should be governed with input from teachers and administrators. Its implementation should not add substantial work for teachers or principals.

Campus leaders are crucial to the success of performance-pay systems. Administrators should hire principals with the ability to be strong campus leaders. Principals should know, understand, and support the system and should also be eligible for awards.

Districts must be able to capture and analyze data so they can gauge progress and the need for corrections. Outside evaluators should also be used to analyze the system’s success.

Teachers and administrators must be involved in every step of plan development and plan information must be communicated in simple, straightforward terms to build understanding and support during the process.

Finally, plan developers should provide educators with the chance to vote to show their support for the plan before it’s put in place.