Randy Pozdena conducted a study of merit pay for the Broad Foundation and Cascade Politicy Institute and wrote a Cascade Commentary that was published as an opinion column in the Oregonian. It was also posted on Oregon Catalyst Monday, October 13, 2008.
"…there is a growing appreciation of the fact that public education is fundamentally a service business. It faces the same challenges of meeting the expectations of its customers, organizing itself to be effective, motivating its labor force to be productive, and doing all this while keeping a sharp eye on costs.
…Using consumer choice—and the prospect that underperforming schools, administrators and faculty may fail—can ensure strong incentives to excel.
…reformers are turning their attention to the motivational opportunities that might be implemented within the existing local public school setting. To this end, the idea of paying for performance is becoming the focus of various experiments and comparative studies.
…The greatest potential appears to be at the classroom teaching level, since that is where the accountability process departs most markedly from what we think of as efficient organizational paradigms. In other words, we should apply financial incentives where the system is most in need of improvement – the classroom.
…The challenge is one of implementation. Educators long have been relatively insulated from the discipline of true accountability sanctions or incentives. Implementing performance measurement and incentives is considered by some to be an intrusion into the presumptively "special" setting of schools. But in the absence of structural reforms, my research suggests such intrusions may be not only warranted, but necessary to improve student achievement."
