Research Notes: Teacher Incentives Lead to Better Student Outcomes

A program that offered pay incentives to teachers for performance led to better outcomes for their students in school and in early adulthood, a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows.

The authors—Sarah Cohodes of Columbia University; Ozkan Eren of University of California, Riverside; and Orgul Ozturk of the University of South Carolina—examined data from high-needs schools that used South Carolina’s Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), which includes incentive pay, professional development, the potential for career advancement, observations of teacher performance, and test-score based accountability.

The researchers estimate that 8th grade students exposed to the TAP program were 3 to 4 percentage points more likely to still be in school at 12th grade. There was also a 1.4 percentage point drop in likelihood of being arrested of a felony, and a 2.7 percentage point drop in the odds of being reliant on social welfare programs as a young adult.

The authors add to existing scholarship on the value of pay incentives for teachers and should increase the likelihood that other states will attempt to replicate this program.