IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v31y2012i6p1067-1083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic pay reform: A student outcomes-based evaluation of Denver's ProComp teacher pay initiative

Author

Listed:
  • Goldhaber, Dan
  • Walch, Joe

Abstract

Denver Public Schools utilizes one of the nation's highest profile alternative teacher compensation systems, and a key element of Denver's Professional Compensation System for Teachers (ProComp) is pay for performance. This study analyzes the student achievement implications of ProComp utilizing matched student- and teacher-level data from 2003 to 2010. We find that student achievement increased during the years ProComp was implemented, but that these gains were observed for students taught by teachers enrolled in ProComp's alternative compensation system as well as non-participating teachers. While the findings are not consistent across grades and subjects, there is some evidence that teachers voluntarily opting into ProComp are more effective than those who do not volunteer. Finally, some ProComp bonuses were well targeted towards value-added measures of teacher effectiveness while others were not.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldhaber, Dan & Walch, Joe, 2012. "Strategic pay reform: A student outcomes-based evaluation of Denver's ProComp teacher pay initiative," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1067-1083.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:31:y:2012:i:6:p:1067-1083
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.06.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775712000751
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.06.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. Harris, Douglas N. & Sass, Tim R., 2011. "Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 798-812, August.
    3. Figlio, David N., 2006. "Testing, crime and punishment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 837-851, May.
    4. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    5. Steven Glazerman & Allison McKie & Nancy Carey & Dominic Harris, "undated". "Evaluation of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) in the Chicago Public Schools: Study Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c4b086efcd42433691ba264b8, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1346-1361, December.
    7. Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler, 2011. "The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-career Teachers," NBER Working Papers 16877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    9. Jacob, Brian A., 2005. "Accountability, incentives and behavior: the impact of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 761-796, June.
    10. Woessmann, Ludger, 2011. "Cross-country evidence on teacher performance pay," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 404-418, June.
    11. Jesse Rothstein, 2010. "Teacher Quality in Educational Production: Tracking, Decay, and Student Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(1), pages 175-214.
    12. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2008. "Can Principals Identify Effective Teachers? Evidence on Subjective Performance Evaluation in Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 101-136.
    13. C. Kirabo Jackson & Elias Bruegmann, 2009. "Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 85-108, October.
    14. Figlio, David N. & Kenny, Lawrence W., 2007. "Individual teacher incentives and student performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 901-914, June.
    15. Kata Mihaly & Daniel F. McCaffrey & J. R. Lockwood & Tim R. Sass, 2010. "Centering and reference groups for estimates of fixed effects: Modifications to felsdvreg," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(1), pages 82-103, March.
    16. Randall Reback & Julie Berry Cullen, 2006. "Tinkering toward accolades: School gaming under a performance accountability system," Working Papers 0601, Barnard College, Department of Economics.
    17. Robert Gibbons, 2005. "Incentives Between Firms (and Within)," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(1), pages 2-17, January.
    18. Steven Glazerman & Allison Seifullah, "undated". "An Evaluation of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) in Chicago: Year Two Impact Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports e1e82d8804cc4a10a83a43f84, Mathematica Policy Research.
    19. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
    20. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 2010. "Generalizations about Using Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 267-271, May.
    21. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    22. repec:mpr:mprres:6649 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Michael J. Podgursky & Matthew G. Springer, 2007. "Teacher performance pay: A review," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 909-950.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    2. Matthew P. Steinberg & Morgaen L. Donaldson, 2016. "The New Educational Accountability: Understanding the Landscape of Teacher Evaluation in the Post-NCLB Era," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 11(3), pages 340-359, Summer.
    3. Hanley Chiang & Cecilia Speroni & Mariesa Herrmann & Kristin Hallgren & Paul Burkander & Alison Wellington, "undated". "Evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund: Final Report on Implementation and Impacts of Pay-for-Performance Across Four Years," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 568955b06a2a4b11b954dded8, Mathematica Policy Research.
    4. Balch, Ryan & Springer, Matthew G., 2015. "Performance pay, test scores, and student learning objectives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 114-125.
    5. Brian Gill & Brittany English & Joshua Furgeson & Moira McCullough, "undated". "Alternative Student Growth Measures for Teacher Evaluation: Profiles of Early-Adopting Districts," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 75a6f8ad56364762acf38c648, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. repec:mpr:mprres:8118 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Alison Wellington & Hanley Chiang & Kristin Hallgren & Cecilia Speroni & Mariesa Herrmann & Paul Burkander, "undated". "Evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund: Implementation and Impacts of Pay-for-Performance After Three Years (Final Report)," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c01a81e283374843b1d4b39ce, Mathematica Policy Research.
    8. Hanley Chiang & Alison Wellington & Kristin Hallgren & Cecilia Speroni & Mariesa Herrmann & Steven Glazerman & Jill Constantine, "undated". "Evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund: Implementation and Impacts of Pay-for-Performance After Two Years," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 4f123c78ddb644079b88d2bb4, Mathematica Policy Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hanushek, Eric A., 2011. "The economic value of higher teacher quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 466-479, June.
    2. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    3. Murphy, Richard & Weinhardt, Felix & Wyness, Gill, 2021. "Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Goel, Deepti & Barooah, Bidisha, 2018. "Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi," GLO Discussion Paper Series 231, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Allison Atteberry & Susanna Loeb & James Wyckoff, 2013. "Do First Impressions Matter? Improvement in Early Career Teacher Effectiveness," NBER Working Papers 19096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sean Corcoran & Dan Goldhaber, 2013. "Value Added and Its Uses: Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(3), pages 418-434, July.
    7. Dan Goldhaber & Michael Hansen, 2013. "Is it Just a Bad Class? Assessing the Long-term Stability of Estimated Teacher Performance," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(319), pages 589-612, July.
    8. Balch, Ryan & Springer, Matthew G., 2015. "Performance pay, test scores, and student learning objectives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 114-125.
    9. Canales, Andrea & Maldonado, Luis, 2018. "Teacher quality and student achievement in Chile: Linking teachers' contribution and observable characteristics," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 33-50.
    10. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.
    11. Goldhaber, Dan & Liddle, Stephanie & Theobald, Roddy, 2013. "The gateway to the profession: Assessing teacher preparation programs based on student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 29-44.
    12. Azam, Mehtabul & Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi, 2015. "Assessing teacher quality in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 74-83.
    13. Jian Zhang & Songqing Jin & Wei Si, 2020. "Incentivising teachers? Evaluating the incentive effect of China’s teacher performance‐based compensation reform in rural China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(1), pages 171-188, January.
    14. Sass, Tim R. & Hannaway, Jane & Xu, Zeyu & Figlio, David N. & Feng, Li, 2012. "Value added of teachers in high-poverty schools and lower poverty schools," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 104-122.
    15. Marine de Talancé, 2015. "Better Teachers, Better Results? Evidence from Rural Pakistan," Working Papers DT/2015/21, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    16. Harris, Douglas N. & Sass, Tim R., 2014. "Skills, productivity and the evaluation of teacher performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 183-204.
    17. Dan Goldhaber & Roddy Theobald, 2013. "Managing the Teacher Workforce in Austere Times: The Determinants and Implications of Teacher Layoffs," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 494-527, October.
    18. Papay, John P. & Kraft, Matthew A., 2015. "Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 105-119.
    19. Cook, Jason B. & Mansfield, Richard K., 2016. "Task-specific experience and task-specific talent: Decomposing the productivity of high school teachers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 51-72.
    20. Derek Neal, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," NBER Working Papers 16710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teacher salaries; Productivity;

    JEL classification:

    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:31:y:2012:i:6:p:1067-1083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.