Research Syntheses

CECR provides concise responses to key program design and implementation questions using research-based studies and other relevant information.

General Compensation

• Does evidence suggest that some teachers are significantly more effective than others at raising student achievement? 54 KB PDF
  
  
• What do we know about the relationship between student achievement and teachers' educational attainment and experience, which is the traditional way that teacher salaries are determined? 75 KB PDF
  
  
• What lessons have been learned from the research on personnel compensation in the private sector, and how might these lessons apply to the development of new systems of educator compensation? 226 KB PDF

Compensation for Teachers of Hard-to-Fill Subjects and Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools

• Does evidence suggest that some groups of teachers are more sensitive to differences in pay and working conditions than others? 48 KB PDF
  
  
• How much would salaries have to increase to attract and retain sufficient numbers of mathematics and science teachers, whose specialized skills and knowledge generally command much higher salaries in the private sector? 62 KB PDF
  
  
• Does evidence suggest that additional pay could overcome teacher reluctance to work in hard-to-staff schools? If so, how big would pay increases have to be in order to be effective? 64 KB PDF
  
  

Performance Pay

• What do we know about the conditions under which teachers and principals will work for performance pay? 47 KB PDF
  
  
• How large do performance incentives need to be in order to be effective? 50 KB PDF
  
  
• Does evidence suggest that teachers behave differently in schools that reward individual teachers rather than the entire school for gains in student achievement? Are they more competitive and less collaborative, as is commonly believed? 37 KB PDF
  
  

Measurement

• How well do principals' evaluations of teachers predict student achievement outcomes? 44 KB PDF
  
  

Building Teacher and Community Support for New Compensation Systems

• Do surveys indicate that teachers, principals, and the public support new forms of teacher and principal compensation? 43 KB PDF
  
  
• What factors affect teachers' perceptions about the fairness of performance-based pay? 37 KB PDF
  
  
• How should compensation systems be structured to increase the likelihood that teachers and teachers unions will support them? 156 KB PDF
  
  
• What effect does teacher involvement in the design and implementation of new forms of compensation have on program effectiveness? 46 KB PDF

This page last updated on: December 18, 2007