Issue Brief: Performance Pay for Teachers

This PACER Issue Brief–the third in a series–examines alternative teacher compensation models, specifically pay for performance. It builds on the series’ first brief on teacher effectiveness to provide context, identify challenges, and answer questions about performance pay systems. We focus on what rigorous, objective research has found, and where gaps remain. As always, RFA’s goal is to provide stakeholders with trusted, non-partisan information that can support emerging state and local policy discussions. The works cited in this brief include peer-reviewed research from some of the nation’s most respected education scholars and institutes, including Mathematica Policy Research Center and the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College-a primary source of scholarship in this field.