Teacher participation in a merit-pay program led to the equivalent of four extra weeks of student learning, according to a new analysis of 44 studies of incentive-pay initiatives in the United States and abroad.
Vanderbilt University researchers analyzed incentive-pay studies that had been in place for four years on average, with yearly or one-off awards ranging from $26 to $20,000 in U.S. dollars. They found merit-pay programs aimed at groups of teachers who worked together to earn incentive pay, as opposed to individuals competing against one another, resulted in an effect more than twice the average.
