Study Recommends Teacher Incentive Pay to Improve Performance

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

A recent study by the Fraser Institute has concluded that the current system of paying Canadian teachers is “stuck in a time warp,” and warned that “excellence goes unrewarded (while) mediocrity goes unaddressed.” According to the report released by the public policy think-tank on Monday, it was recommended that should teachers should be rewarded based primarily on student performance, i.e. teacher incentive pay, instead of the current situation where teacher salaries are based on tenure and credentials.

Author of the study and a senior fellow at Fraser Institute, Vicki Alger, stressed that the current system is outdated and fails to consider the critical element of student achievement. Alger mentioned that “the evidence suggests that incentive pay programs, when properly designed and implemented, improve student performance even among the most disadvantaged student populations, and are more cost-effective than across-the-board pay raises and class-size reductions.”

The study pointed out that teacher incentive programs have improved performance among teachers and students alike, and the majority of teachers in the program support the idea of linking compensation to performance, despite union objections. And even though the critics claim that teachers under the proposed system would simply “teach to the test,” i.e. rig lesson plans to focus on improving standardized test scores, rather than fundamental learning, Alger highlighted that there is evidence to the contrary. It was stated that “teachers respond to incentives by changing the way they teach” and “they are aware of their own effectiveness, and even highly effective teachers want to improve, for themselves and their students.”