Comment & Debate
University of Florida economists David Figlio and Lawrence Kenny wrote in 2007 paper titled Individual Teacher Incentives and Student Performance: “Doling out merit pay to most teachers provides them with little incentive to do a better job. Our evidence, which is unique to the incentives literature, suggests there is a relation between test scores and merit pay targeted to a few, but no association between student performance and indiscriminate merit pay. … this increased use of teacher merit pay in American education is occurring with virtually no evidence of its potential effectiveness.”[1]
“Top Ten Reasons Why Merit Pay for Teachers Is a Terrible Idea”. Education Portal. July 10th, 2007: “9. Merit Pay Does Very Little for the Students
Based on the evidence, it’s hard to say that merit based pay benefits the vast majority of teachers. It’s also hard to say that it’s good for any students. A University of Florida study showed that students taught by teachers participating in merit pay programs only scored one or two percentage points higher on standardized tests than did other students.”