In July 2007, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) began implementation of AISD REACH, a comprehensive and strategic compensation initiative. The initiative addressed three key areas: student growth, professional growth, and recruitment and retention of teachers and principals at highest needs schools. REACH combines an outcome-based pay…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the second-year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, a statewide educator incentive program that operated in Texas. As part of this larger study, evaluators examined how participation in the TEEG…

In U.S. K-12 public education, incentive pay for educators remains firmly fixed as a high-interest policy topic and has recently become a popular reform initiative in many school systems. The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), created in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, is at the forefront of this policy movement and has provided hundreds of…

The Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program was federally- and state-funded and provided three-year grants to schools to design and implement performance pay plans from the 2005-06 to 2007-08 school years. GEEG was implemented in 99 high poverty, high performing Texas public schools. This report builds on the previous GEEG evaluation…

In this paper we examine the research literature on teacher performance pay. Evidence clearly suggests an upsurge of interest in many states and school districts; however, expanded use of performance pay has been controversial. We briefly review the history of teacher pay policy in the U.S. and earlier cycles of interest in merit or…