The body of research on the design, implementation, and effects of performance-based compensation systems has influenced the design and evaluation of the 2010 Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants. In the sections presented here, the authors describe the key components of 2010 TIF grants and the conceptual framework for the evaluation. The remainder of this report describes the plans for the study design in greater detail. In Chapter II, the authors provide context for the 2010 TIF grants and describe the treatment and counterfactual conditions--that is, the conditions that would exist in the absence of the performance pay systems. In Chapter III, they discuss data collection, the sample for the evaluation, and how they will conduct random assignment. Finally, they explain the analysis plans in Chapter IV. (Contains 12 tables, 1 figure and 15 footnotes.) [This report was submitted to the Institute of Education Sciences.]