Supports predictions concerning two consequences of combining merit pay and other business practices within a reading program: (1) that school personnel would constrict their definitions of reading and reading instruction to those prescribed by district policy and that (2) teachers would consider reading instruction less fulfilling than they did…

The findings from part 3 of the seventh annual American School Board Journal survey of school board members are reported. Board members were asked about policy changes made in the areas of graduation requirements, financial incentives for teachers, and instructional time. (TE)

Offers recommendations for developing a system of teacher staffing and evaluation that would improve teacher performance and the state of education in general. Discusses incentive and reward systems, performance evaluation, career advancement and enrichment, and other issues. (KH)

Critiques Chester Finn's analysis (EA 518 431, this issue) of teachers unions, outlining the ambiguities in Finn's theories. (MD)

Teachers deserve higher salaries because society values their work. Local districts, however, have a responsibility to specify precisely what the community expects its teachers to do. This action would simplify teacher evaluation and make merit pay a workable possibility. (PP)

This article summarizes the School Management Model discussed in the author's book, "Improving School Performance." Effective communication, staff evaluation, and performance information are presented as keys to building teamwork and upgrading performance. Teacher merit pay is analyzed in light of the model. (MJL)

Schools in the Houston (Texas) area use training and reward systems to attract and keep bilingual teachers. (Author)

Administrators and faculties are beginning to search for new methods of evaluating teachers and for ideas for developing new motivational systems which would encourage teachers to higher levels of performance. The outcomes centered approach to teacher evaluation encourages better teacher performance by devising methods for recognizing and…

Highlights rationales for having systematic merit salary administration, and presents guidelines for introducing such a system. Discusses using the Salary Model (a menu-driven software package that allows administrators to compare activities of one faculty member to others) as one aspect of a merit salary system. (MM)

The University of Rhode Island established a merit pay system to reward exceptional teaching, research, and service and to retain valuable faculty. A survey investigated faculty attitudes about the new system's fairness, potential results on faculty productivity and morale, and effects on faculty allegiance. (MSE)

Presents an overview of selected literature about employee compensation. Highlights include the foundations of reward and recognition systems, incentive plans, problems with merit pay, a historical perspective on performance pay, evaluation criteria and processes, self-rating, job motivation and satisfaction, employee attitudes, collective…

Survey of 35 public and private colleges and universities investigated prevalence and characteristics of merit pay programs for faculty and support staff. Results include information on compensation program coverage (faculty, staff, collective bargaining groups, percentage of total workforce), percent of funds awarded solely on merit, desired…

The author discusses what he considers to be the 10 leading cases on education labor relations decided in state and federal courts during the 1990s. Concludes with a prediction that efforts to implement merit-pay schemes tied to student performance will lead to employment conflict. (PKP)

For more than a century, public education has worked under a single salary schedule that compensates teachers for college credits, education degrees, and years of experience, but not for their effectiveness in the classroom. In fact, research shows that the degrees, courses, and experience that teachers have, beyond the first few years of…

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) has undertaken a long-term project to insure that effective teaching is rewarded and, in particular, has examined the institutional impediments to rewarding teaching as well as research. To this end a survey was conducted of 449 faculty who participated in early phases of the rewarding teaching project. In…