\n<\/p>\n
After a brief period of inactivity, more states and districts appear open to the idea of giving teachers additional pay for taking on certain kinds of roles or accelerating student achievement\u2014with experiments and full-fledged programs under way in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah, among others.<\/p>\n
The idea of \u201cperformance\u201d or \u201cmerit pay”\u2014setting teachers\u2019 compensation in part on their students\u2019 achievement\u2014has a long and contentious history. Advocates have long claimed it rewards the most effective teachers and encourages them to stay in the classroom, while critics argue models often use narrow, ill-fitting test measures for teacher quality and competitive bonuses discourage teachers from collaborating.<\/p>\n
A wave of state and district experiments\u2014driven in the 2010s by federal grants focused on \u201cvalue added\u201d measures of teachers\u2019 effects on student growth on standardized test scores\u2014showed mixed results. Performance-pay models fell somewhat out of fashion in the years since, as policymakers focused more attention on recruiting and retaining teachers amid nationwide shortages, and teacher strikes led to more emphasis on base pay.<\/p>\n
But years of worsening academic malaise are now prompting policymakers to experiment with new ways to link teacher pay to student growth. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last five years, [performance pay] has been somewhat overlooked as a strategy,\u201d said Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. \u201cBut I think we\u2019ve seen in districts … and in Arkansas\u2019s work and in Texas\u2019 work, they\u2019re really trying to combine these efforts to improve teacher effectiveness, to reward teachers, and to give them meaningful feedback using the educator-evaluation system. And when those things are all put in place together … we are seeing student outcomes increase.\u201d <\/p>\n
The newest and most ambitious of these experiments go beyond gauging performance based primarily on test scores to consider a teacher\u2019s classroom practice, peer collaboration, and willingness to tackle high-need subjects, students, and communities. Many of them are still too new and unstudied to have generated conclusive results. <\/p>\n
Utah, for example, has launched a five-year pilot in which teachers are evaluated based on a combination of student achievement growth on test scores, professional evaluations, parent and student surveys, and in some districts measures of teacher-team collaboration. <\/p>\n
Beginning in the 2026-27 school year, top-performing teachers will receive bonuses each year from 2026 to 2029. The top 5% of eligible teachers in participating districts will receive a $10,000 bonus per year; the top 6-10% of teachers receive $5,000 per year; and the top 11-25% of teachers receive $2,000 per year. Teachers in high-poverty schools have these bonuses doubled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that teaching is not a performative act, but one that is to produce a result: student learning,\u201d said David Forbush, associate director of Utah State University\u2019s Center for the School of the Future, which helped develop the pay program in partnership with the state. \u201cOur data that suggests that most teachers, if they\u2019re in a high-poverty school and get tenure, tend to move out of their schools into low-poverty schools where the work is easier. Our idea is to try to incentivize teachers: \u2018If you\u2019re exceptional, stay in your schools.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Utah has attempted a statewide merit pay program before. Its career ladders program, which ran from 1983-2012, required districts to implement an extended school year to incorporate teacher professional development days, additional opportunities for teachers to work to earn more money, as well as merit awards. Most districts didn\u2019t implement merit pay; teachers and principals had complained the bonuses set teachers in competition with each other and made them less likely to collaborate<\/p>\n
Half of states and the District of Columbia now encourage\u2014if not explicitly require\u2014districts to use teacher performance when structuring pay systems. <\/p>\n
Arkansas\u2019s LEARNS Merit Teacher Incentive Fund, created in 2023, initially bumped the state\u2019s minimum starting salary up to $50,000, with a minimum $2,000 raise for all teachers. Going forward, it provides no automatic salary increases, but instead allocates bonuses of up to $10,000 per year for classroom teachers, library or media specialists and counselors. <\/p>\n
The size of individual bonuses vary based on whether the teacher shows high student growth over several years, mentors other teachers, and\/or teaches in subjects, areas, or student groups with critical teaching shortages. In the 2024-2025 school year, more than 4,200 educators earned non-performance bonuses, with an average award of more than $3,300. (The first performance-based bonuses haven\u2019t rolled out yet.)<\/p>\n
Gema Zamarro, an education reform and economics professor at the University of Arkansas, has been tracking the implementation of the Arkansas pay overhaul as part of an ongoing evaluation of the program. Early research from Zamarro and her colleagues has found the pay restructuring has helped rural districts be more competitive with larger nearby districts in recruiting and retaining new teachers, and has reduced the number of teachers leaving the classroom for other fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still very early results, but they seem pretty robust,\u201d she said. \u201cIn Arkansas, salary increases have been relatively small year after year, so the only way teachers had to make a meaningful increase in their pay was leaving the classroom and taking one of these outside roles in education, like becoming a principal, assistant principal or … teacher coach. Now the difference [between teaching and other roles] is lower, so it does seem that it is reducing turnover from transitions out of the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019s statewide Teacher Incentive Allotment, launched in 2019 and expanded this year, provides funds to districts to provide merit pay to teachers based on three levels of designations. Master teachers, considered the top 5% based on student growth and class observations, can earn $12,000 to$32,000. Teachers in the next 20% of performance are considered \u201cexemplary\u201d and earn $6,000 to $18,000. Recognized teachers, who either earn National Board certification or perform in the top third of performance, can earn $3,000 to$9,000 per year. <\/p>\n
The number of Texas teachers who have received performance-based bonuses has shot up from fewer than 3,000 five years ago across the three performance levels to roughly 25,000 teachers in 2025.<\/p>\n
While there is no statewide evidence yet how the program has affected student performance or teacher turnover, some individual districts have credited it with progress in both. Late last month, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee highlighted the Ector County school district, which has seen significant improvements in both teacher turnover and student achievement from restructuring its teacher pay using the state allotment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe single most important in-school factor that influences student achievement is the teacher,\u201d Superintendent Scott Muri told the committee. \u201cWe often seek the \u2018silver bullet\u2019 and fail to invest deeply in the most important element in the education equation.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the program as a whole has not helped in expanding the overall attractiveness of teaching in Texas, which has the highest share of uncertified teachers in the country, according to Toni Templeton, who tracks Texas teacher workforce issues for the University of Houston and is studying the allotment program both statewide and in the Houston school district.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re fighting is that you can go to school, get a bachelor\u2019s degree, and of all the options of jobs you have available to you, teacher pay is quite low comparatively,\u201d Templeton said. \u201cThis focuses on the top teachers, not a raise of teachers\u2019 base pay, so we don\u2019t have enough dollars in the public education system to provide a competitive wage to get interest back into the field and get people back into [teaching] routes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teacher salaries nationwide have risen 27% from 2015-16 to 2024-25\u2014but after adjusting for inflation, pay has declined by more than 5%, according to federal education data. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s spurred more states and districts to incorporate bonuses for hard-to-staff subjects, student groups, and geographic areas. In one recent study, NCTQ found the share of large urban districts paying more for teachers in hard-to-staff positions more than doubled, from 22% to 45%, from 2017 to 2024. Few of these shortage-based bonuses require teachers to demonstrate student academic growth, suggesting that most states are keeping performance-based and shortage-based bonuses separate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve really encouraged this idea of teachers being incentivized to be in classrooms,\u201d said Jenna Chiasson, Louisiana\u2019s deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, who credited the state\u2019s new teacher-pay system with improving morale and retention in the state. All teachers got a $2,000 stipend and support staff a $1,000 stipend for the 2025-26 school year. ((A proposed constitutional amendment to make the stipend permanent failed in a state referendum in March, though it is expected to be put on the ballot again next year.)<\/p>\n
Louisiana provides funding for local districts to award bonuses for hard-to-staff teaching positions, but also allows some districts to include merit-pay measures. <\/p>\n
\u201cDifferentiated compensation, when done well and when done right, can really make a large difference, especially when we think overall of our challenges in filling certain teaching positions,\u201d Chiasson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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