Evaluating and Rewarding Teachers
Title
Evaluating and Rewarding Teachers
Author
Hart, Cassandra
Research Area
Social Institutions
Topic
Educational Institutions
Abstract
Policymakers and researchers alike debate the optimal structure of teacher evaluation and compensation systems. This article reviews research in both fields, with a concentration on one increasingly policy‐relevant topic in each domain. Within the evaluation domain, particular attention is given to value‐added measures, which are increasingly being used to incorporate information about student test performance into teacher evaluations. While these measures allow evaluators to make quantitative estimates of teachers' contributions to student learning, critics argue that the measures suffer from a number of problems, including lack of stability, bias, and misattribution of teacher contributions. Within the realm of compensation, I devote particular attention to recent efforts to implement merit pay schemes, which aim to reward teachers, or teams of teachers, that are especially successful at boosting student achievement. Given that states and districts are increasingly requiring the use of value‐added measures in evaluations and experimenting with merit pay plans, both areas are ripe for future research into the benefits and costs of these policies. Suggestions for future directions for research in both fields are offered.