Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and Merit Pay
If we all close our eyes and WISH hard enough, all of our dreams will magically come true...
The results of the NCPI Nashville study(released last year) and of the New York City RAND study (released this week) certainly call into question the motivation theory [these are studies on merit pay that found no improvement in student achievement].
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More importantly, however, these sobering findings from two short-term programs provide no insight into the potential benefits that the broader adoption of merit pay might foster for the overall composition of the teaching force. In our current non-merit-pay world, newly entering teachers can expect very high levels of job security, but very few rewards for high