Merit Pay and Student Achievement: Making Sense of the Debate

Does performance-based teacher pay really lead to greater student achievement? Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives studied merit pay in Nashville, Tennessee—“the most rigorous study of performance-based teacher compensation conducted to date in the United States,” according to Education Week—and found that the bonus-pay system had no overall impact on student achievement.  

At the same time, however, participating teachers did not report finding the pay program’s goals for students out of reach or its impact on school culture damaging, two concerns that have been among those voiced by opponents of performance pay.

Education Week’s Teacher Beat blog has compiled many of the reactions and responses to this study, which has polarized people on both sides of the reform debate.