Will Individual Teacher Pay for Performance
Schemes Increase Student Performance –
Probably Not?
Darvin M. Winick, Ph. D.
December 2011
Institute for Public School Initiatives
5316 Highway 290 West, Suite 510
Austin, Texas 78735-8931
www.ipsi.utexas.edu
The Institute for Public School Initiatives (IPSI) was founded in 2004 at the University of Texas System.
IPSI serves as a strategic partner in education program and product innovation as well as an idea
incubator and evaluator of program effectiveness and productivity. IPSI’s mission is to improve student
achievement from preschool through high school via its relationships with The University of Texas
intuitions, community colleges, school districts, and state agencies. Funding for IPSI is made possible
through the generous contributions from private foundations and public agencies.
Will Individual Teacher Pay for Performance Schemes Increase Student
Performance - Probably Not?
Pay for performance is not a new concept. Incentive pay plans have been around for a long time
and the makeup of a good plan are well known. We have learned over time to increase
performance, a plan needs to be understandable to participants and considered fair and
potentially valuable. How do we design a plan to satisfy these needs?
First, to be motivated by incentive pay an individual must have adequate control over the
performance being measured so that increased individual effort will actually produce increased
results. Otherwise, the plan will seem fundamentally unfair. To the extent that influences beyond
the control of the individual limits actual results, the offer of more pay for better results may be
an irritant to the individual and, actually, an effort disincentive.
Second, to actually improve results and receive value in the form of incentive rewards, an
individual must have, in addition to control, the capacity to increase outcomes. Offering to pay
for improved results to individuals who are already working as well as they are able is another
potential frustration and possible disincentive. Although it is not simple to establish individual
capacity, the question must be asked, given an opportunity, does the individual have the
motivation, abilities and skills to cause achievement improvements?
And finally, to produce behavior that improves performance the process for measuring and
reporting results must be understandable and transparent. Complicated, multifactor calculations
may obscure and confuse the relation between effort and results. There must be clarity in the
incentive process so individuals know how to direct their efforts and understand how their
rewards are determined.
While the idea that teachers should be rewarded based on how well their students perform is
attractive, designing plans that are fair, valuable and understandable may not be too easy.
Considering the requirements of a good plan, three questions are obvious.
First Question - Are Individual Teachers in Control?
Most of us agree that good teachers are important to good instruction. However, in most schools
students are assigned to teachers, not selected by them. The mix of abilities and behaviors of
assigned students can have a large impact on performance. Family stability and mobility are out
of a teacher’s control. In addition, individual students may receive services from a variety of
service providers and topic specialists other than an assigned teacher. Students are often
instructed by teacher teams, teacher aides or special mentors. While student centered delivery
methods are laudatory in concept and likely beneficial in practice, their use raises questions
about the amount of control exercised by any individual teacher. At most, an individual teacher
is only partially in control of overall student performance.
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WILL INDIVIDUAL TEACHER PAY FOR PERFORMANCE SCHEMES INCREASE STUDENT PERFORMANCE –
PROBABLY NOT?
Second Question - Are Individual Teachers Capable of Improving Student
Performance?
It is difficult to raise the question of teacher capacity to increase performance without suggesting
that some teachers may lack the ability, are not willing to apply the effort or are inadequately
trained for their position. Even though incentive plan designers often report that the likely effect
of increasing the pay of poor performers is higher paid poor performers, an implication that an
individual teacher cannot cause student performance to improve is difficult to accept.
In addition, a common strategy for increasing an individual’s capacity is to narrow his or her
responsibility. In public education this strategy assigns a teacher to teaching specific topics or
to serving only students with special characteristics, i.e. only reading, math, drama, physical
education, etc. Specialization may be a wise use of human resources, but it makes paying
incentives on overall student performance problematic.
Final Question - Do Individual Teachers Understand How Incentive Pay Rewards
Are Calculated?
A mystical “black box” into which assessment and other student performance data are entered
and somehow value added results are produced is how many teachers describe the calculation of
their performance. To be fair, the complex calculations that are so hard to follow are attempts to
eliminate the effect of factors out of the teacher’s control, to “level the playing field” by
compensating for real and perceived student population differences, resource allocation
variations, social considerations, etc. The volume of possible influences and the normal human
variations present serious clarity challenges.
As we make instruction more individual student centered, instruction more specialized and
student contact with service providers more diverse, the black box expands and clarity further
diminishes. The unintended consequence is a complex set of calculations that are difficult for the
teacher to understand.
So Do Incentive Systems Have a Place in Public Education?
The reasonable answer is yes, but only if properly designed.
For starters it is necessary to determine who is really responsible for student performance. The
standard “knee jerk” answer is the teacher, but a more realistic answer may be that achievement
is a product of a combination of efforts, including only in part the effort of an assigned teacher.
Rewards, then, should flow in proportion to all contributors. Individual incentive pay fits the old
fashioned concept of one teacher in front of a class who is fully responsible for one set of
students. Individual incentives fit modern school practices much less well. Results actually
produced by group effort might best be rewarded on a group basis.
Additionally, if achievement gains are the goal, it is important to realistically consider whether
the involved teachers, supporting personnel and management have the capabilities to improve
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WILL INDIVIDUAL TEACHER PAY FOR PERFORMANCE SCHEMES INCREASE STUDENT PERFORMANCE –
PROBABLY NOT?
student performance. It is unrealistic to expect performance incentives alone to improve the
performance of poor performers and ineffective organizations. It may be necessary to reevaluate
instruction, redesign the school organization or replace management or staff to increase capacity
before installing incentive pay.
Considering clarity needs, all complexity in assigning gains in student performance cannot be
designed away, but the process is simplified and the volume of calculations reduced when the
mix of variables are considered for groups of students larger than a specific group assigned to a
specific teacher. Individual student differences impact a campus less than a specific class.
Everything considered, pay for performance is a powerful management tool if designed carefully
to consider control, capacity and clarity issues. Poorly structured incentive plans will likely
increase costs more than student performance.
About the Author
Dr. Darvin Winick is a Senior Research Fellow at the College of Education and the Executive
Director of the Institute for Public School Initiatives at The University of Texas at Austin. He
has served as Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board from 2002 to September 2009
and is currently an advisor to the Governing Board's 12th Grade Preparedness Commission. He
is President of Winick & Associates. Previously, Dr. Winick was an advisor to the 1984 Texas
Select Committee on Public Education, and also helped organize the Texas Business and
Education Coalition and Texans for Education. He was Chairman of the Research Advisory
Committee of the Texas Educational Economic Policy Center, which set out the framework for
the current Texas Public School Accountability System. He has served as volunteer Chief of
Staff for the Texas Governor's Task Force on Education, Vice Chair of the Governor's Focus on
Reading Task Force, as a member of the Education Commissioner's Committee on
Accountability and as an advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Education. He co-authored Four-Star
Schools of Texas, a report on public school campus performance, and has edited reports on
education accountability, early reading instruction, and teacher preparation. Dr. Winick is a
certified management consultant and a founding member of the Institute of Management
Consultants. He holds a doctorate in organizational psychology from Purdue University.
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WILL INDIVIDUAL TEACHER PAY FOR PERFORMANCE SCHEMES INCREASE STUDENT PERFORMANCE –
PROBABLY NOT?
Institute for Public School Initiatives
The University of Texas at Austin
5316 Highway 290 West, Suite 510
Austin, Texas 78735-8931
512-232-6569
www.ipsi.utexas.edu