The Effect of Merit Pay on Student Achievement:
An Analysis of Programs and their Impact
Tavari Turner
Columbus State University
The Effect of Merit Pay on Student Achievement
An Analysis of Programs and their Impact
Every community and state at large wants to create the greatest future for the place they are. Parents and taxpayers alike want to ensure that the education system in their community is the best around. They truly understand that the education system plays a very large role in developing youth into positive and productive citizens. There is also a lot of attention placed around the fact that the cost of education is rising each year and the improvements in the system are not really being seen.
There is no secret that teachers are essential to student success. Studies have shown that the top quartile of teachers were three times more effective than the bottom quartile (Hanushek, Kain, O'Brien & Rivkin, 2005).
Currently, teachers are paid based on their post-secondary education and their teaching experience; none of these criteria are linked to their student's performance.
There have been numerous studies conducted to measure whether or not this process has been effective. The students have generally been accessed at the beginning of the school year and then reassessed at the end of the school year in core subject areas. The academic data was recorded and those teachers whose students had improved were awarded merit pay and those teachers whose students did not improve were not rewarded. Those teachers who had not made improvements over several years were put into retraining programs in order to help them maintain their teaching certificates.
Generally the programs have worked under pretty simple guidelines and have had a very interesting undertone to them. Teachers begin with instruction. Teachers whose students make...