Charter School Models for Merit Pay for Teachers

Research Study

Advocates for public charter schools long have urged their leaders to use their relative independence to innovate in the area of personnel policy—specifically by paying teachers for excellent performance.

This paper examines merit pay programs at high-achieving charter schools from around the United States: Liberty Common School in Fort Collins, Colorado; KIPP Delta College Preparatory School in Helena, Arkansas; Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota; the Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, California; and others.

“We want our teachers to know that we reward sustained excellent performance,” observed the Headmaster at Liberty Common. “The better they perform, the more compensation they will receive. Sounds logical, doesn’t it?”

For other schools that are contemplating implementing merit pay programs for their own employees, it is the author’s hope that these examples present useful models.

Details follow.

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