Allan Odden, Carolyn Kelley, Herbert Heneman, and Anthony Milanowski, Consortium for Policy Research in Education, November 2001
Allan Odden and several associates at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education recently published this review of the theory and practice of financially rewarding teachers "for acquiring and demonstrating specific knowledge and skills needed to meet educational goals." Note that this isn't what's commonly referred to as "merit pay" as it's not keyed to teachers' effectiveness in boosting their students' achievement. Rather, it's based on attributes of the teachers themselves, what they know and are able to show that they can do. The authors also take pains to distinguish it from "career ladders" which, at least as they characterize them, tend to pull the best teachers out of the classroom into administrative roles. They found seven programs in K-12 education that satisfy their criteria. Based on what they learned from those programs, they identify a set of key design issues; draw eleven lessons (most of them pretty obvious) from "the pioneers"; and briefly discuss policy implications for states. It's fairly general, but perhaps that's all that can be expected from a twelve-page "policy brief." If you'd like to see it, call 215-573-0700 or find a PDF version on the web at http://www.cpre.org/Publications/rb34.pdf.
