Paying teachers for performance is working in DC and Dallas

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Teachers across the country are paid based on years of experience and graduate credits, not on the job they do or how well they do it, write Eric A. Hanushek and Margaret E. Raymond, Hoover fellows, in the Washington Post. When teacher pay is linked to performance, students learn more.

"D.C. students’ learning has improved more rapidly over the past 15 years than that of students in 20 other urban districts whose performance we have assessed," they write. The 2009 decision to revamp teacher evaluation and pay effective teachers more, known as the IMPACT program, has led to improved student performance.

When Mike Miles was superintendent in Dallas in 2015, the district adopted "a salary system based on a sophisticated evaluation of teacher effectiveness," and provided "performance-based bonuses to teachers who would agree to go to the lowest-performing schools," they write. Some of the best teachers agreed to move, and "within two years, these schools jumped up to the district average."

Miles now hopes to bring performance pay to Houston.

But most school districts aren't willing to change, write Hanushek and Raymond.

"Spending per student adjusted for inflation has quadrupled since the Johnson administration," they write, but much of the additional spending has gone "for add-ons, such as morning meditation or school-based health centers, that don’t disturb the structure and incentives of the system as a whole."It's time go beyond tinkering, Hanushek and Raymond argue.

After the first few years in the classroom, teachers' effectiveness plateaus, many believe. Their pay goes up with experience, but not their skills.

Not so, concludes a research brief by Annie Podolsky and Linda Darling-Hammond. Teachers can keep improving "when they work in supportive schools" and "collaborate with experienced colleagues." It also helps if they stay in the same teaching assignment, rather than switching grades or subjects.