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The Daily Signal
Should Teachers
Be Paid Based on Student Performance? What This New Study Shows.
Alex Belica
March 18, 2015
There are long term benefits to paying teachers by how well students
perform in the classroom, according to a new study released by Israeli
economist Victor Lavy.
The author analyzed current income and demographic data for a set of
students who graduated from high schools that were part of a trial
program that paid teachers according to their students’ performance on
standardized tests during 2000 and 2001. Lavy compared the educational
attainment and yearly earnings of students in schools who participated
in the program to their peers at comparable schools who did not.
The pay-for-performance program raised tests scores. It also apparently
helped students in other ways. Graduation rates rose, and college
enrollment rates were 5.5 percentage points higher. The number of years
of post-secondary education completed by students in the trial program
was 63 percent higher than among their peers in the control group.
As adults, the students from pay-for-performance schools earned 7
percent more than the control group. They were also 2 percent less
likely to need unemployment benefits during the measurement period.
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The benefits cited here were measured across students from the entire
trial-program school, not just those whose teachers won the performance
bonuses.
Lavy’s study shows long-run benefits of paying teachers by how well
they teach. The results are supported by economic theory and prior
research. In a 2010 paper, Eric Hanushek found that good teachers
dramatically improve the lifetime earnings of their students. Lavy’s
new work shows that paying teachers according to student results helps
students learn more in the short term and increases their economic
prospects in the long run.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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