Current interest in teacher evaluation focuses disproportionately on measurement issues and performance-based pay without an overarching theory of how evaluation works. To develop such a theory, I contrast two motivation theories often used to guide thinking about teacher evaluation. External motivation theory relies on economics and extrinsic incentives. Internal motivation uses psychology and intrinsic incentives. These theories and available evidence raise doubts about performance-based pay, but not the use of other extrinsic incentives. These theories also suggest that to maintain effective intrinsic incentives, policies to remove ineffective teachers should not reduce autonomy or trust among effective teachers and that evaluations should provide teachers with useful feedback and policy makers with information on the conditions that facilitate good teaching.
BakerE. L.BartonP. E.Darling-HammondL.HaertelE.LaddH. F.LinnR. L.ShepardL. A. (2010). Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
2.
BallD. L.BassH. (2000). Interweaving content and pedagogy in teaching and learning to teach: Knowing and using mathematics. In BoalerJ. (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on the teaching and learning of mathematics (pp. 83–104). Westport, CT: Ablex.
3.
BanduraA. (1997). Self-efficacy in changing societies. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
4.
BellC. A. (2012, September). Validation of professional practice components of teacher evaluation systems. Paper presented at the 14th annual Reidy Interactive Lecture Series, Boston, MA.
5.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (2013). Ensuring fair and reliable measures of effective teaching: Culminating findings from the MET Project’s three-year study. Seattle, WA: Author.
6.
BlackP.WiliamD. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability, 21, 5–31.
7.
Booher-JenningsJ. (2005). Below the bubble: “Educational triage” and the Texas accountability system. American Educational Research Journal, 42, 231–268.
8.
BorkoH. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(3), 3–15.
9.
BrownA. B.CliftJ. W. (2010). The unequal effect of adequate yearly progress: Evidence from school visits. American Educational Research Journal, 47, 774–798.
10.
BurgessS.RattoM. (2003). The role of incentives in the public sector: Issues and evidence. Oxford Review of Public Policy, 19, 285–300.
11.
CameronJ.PierceW. D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64, 363–423.
12.
CohenD. K.RaudenbushS. W.BallD. L. (2003). Resources, instruction, and research. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25, 119–142.
13.
Commissioner’s Task Force on Quality Teaching in New Jersey. (2005). Quality teaching in New Jersey. Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Department of Education.
14.
CorwinR. G.BormanK. M. (1988). School as workplace: Structural constraints on administration. In BoyanN. J. (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational administration (pp. 209–238). New York, NY: Longman.
15.
CurtisR. (2012). Building it together: The design and implementation of Hillsborough County public schools’ teacher evaluation system. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute.
16.
DanielsonC.McGrealT. G. (2000). Teacher evaluation to enhance professional practice. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
17.
DeciE. L.RyanR. M. (1996). Need satisfaction and the self-regulation of learning. Learning & Individual Differences, 8, 165–184.
18.
EisenhardtK. M. (1989). Agency theory: An assessment and review. Academy of Management Review, 14, 57–74.
19.
FirestoneW. A. (1991). Merit pay and job enlargement as reforms: Incentives, implementation, and teacher response. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 13, 269–288.
20.
FirestoneW. A.BlitzC. L.GitomerD. H.Gradinarova-KirovaD.ShcherbakovA.NordinT. L. (2013). Year 1 report: New Jersey teacher evaluation pilot program. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
21.
FirestoneW. A.HirschL. S. (2006). A formative evaluation of New Jersey’s professional development requirements for teachers: Year 5. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Educational Policy Analysis.
22.
FirestoneW. A.NordinT. L.ShcherbakovA.BlitzC. L.KirovaD. (in press). New Jersey teacher evaluation: Rutgers Graduate School of Education, Year 2 final report. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Effective School Practices.
23.
FirestoneW. A.PennellJ. R. (1993). Teacher commitment, working conditions, and differential incentive policies. Review of Educational Research, 63, 489–529.
24.
FirestoneW. A.RosenblumS. (1988). Building commitment in urban high schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23, 285–300.
25.
GaretM. S.PorterA. C.DesimoneL.BirmanB. F.YoonK. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 915–946.
26.
GlazermanS.SeifullahA. (2012). An evaluation of the Chicago teacher advancement program (Chicago TAP) after four years. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.
27.
GoldhaberD.HansenM. (2010). Implicit measurement of teacher quality: Using performance on the job to inform teacher tenure decisions. American Economic Review, 100, 250–255.
28.
HackmanJ. R.OldhamG. R. (1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
29.
HamiltonL.BerendsM.StecherB. (2005). Teachers’ responses to standards-based accountability. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
30.
HamiltonL. S.StecherB. M.YuanK. (2008). Standards-based reform in the United States: History, research, and future directions. Santa Monica, CA: Center on Education Policy, RAND.
31.
HanushekE. A.RivkinS. G. (2010). Generalizations about using value-added measures of teacher quality. American Economic Review, 100, 267–271.
32.
HartA. W.MurphyM. J. (1990). New teachers react to redesigned teacher work. American Journal of Education, 98, 224–250.
33.
HaubrichJ. G. (1994). Risk aversion, performance pay, and the principal-agent problem. Journal of Political Economy, 102, 258–276.
34.
HeinrichC. J.MarschkeG. (2010). Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29, 183–208.
35.
HessF. M. (2004). Common sense school reform. American Experiment Quarterly, 7, 16–44.
36.
HeyburnS.LewisJ.RitterG. (2010). Teacher incentive fund grantees. Nashville, TN: National Center on Performance Incentives, Vanderbilt University.
37.
HillH. C.KaptulaL.UmlandK. (2011). A validity argument approach to evaluating teacher value-added scores. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 794–831.
38.
IngersollR. M.MayH. (2012). The magnitude, destinations, and determinants of mathematics and science teacher turnover. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34, 435–464.
39.
JenningsJ. (2012). The effects of accountability system design on teachers’ use of test score data. Teachers College Record, 114(11), 1–23.
40.
JohnsonS. M. (1990). Teachers at work: Achieving success in our schools. New York, NY: Basic Books.
41.
JohnsonS. M.BirkelandS. E. (2003). Pursuing a “sense of success”: New teachers explain their career decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 581–617.
42.
KnappM. S. (2003). Professional development as a policy pathway. In FlodenR. E. (Ed.), Review of research in education (pp. 109–157). Washington, DC: AERA.
43.
KolbeT.StrunkK. O. (2012). Economic incentives as a strategy for responding to teacher staffing problems: A typology of policies and practices. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48, 779–813.
44.
KushmanJ. W. (1992). The organizational dynamics of teacher workplace commitment: A study of urban elementary and middle schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 28, 5–42.
45.
LawlerE. E. (1990). Strategic pay. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
46.
LeithwoodK.JantziD. (2005). A review of transformational school leadership research 1996–2005. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4, 177–199.
47.
LepperM. R.HenderlongJ. (2000). Turning “play” into “work” and “work” into “play”: 25 years of research on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In SansoneC.HarackiewiczJ. (Eds.), Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: The search for optimal motivation and performance (pp. 257–307). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
48.
LockeE. A.LathamG. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57, 705–717.
49.
LortieD. C. (1969). The balance of control and autonomy in elementary school teaching. In EtzioniA. (Ed.), The semi-professions and their organization. New York, NY: Free Press.
50.
MarshJ. A.SpringerM. G.McCaffreyD. F.YuanK.EpsteinS.KoppichJ.. . . PengA. (2011). A big apple for educators: New York City’s experiment with schoolwide performance bonuses: Final evaluation. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
51.
McCaffreyD. F.LockwoodJ. R.KoretzD. M.HamiltonL. S. (2003). Evaluating value-added models for teacher accountability. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
52.
MilanowskiA.KimballS. M. (2003). The framework-based teacher performance assessment systems in Cincinnati and Washoe (No. TC-03-07). Madison, WI: Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
53.
MillerG. J. (2005). The political evolution of principal-agent models. Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 203–225. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.8.082103.104840
54.
National Research Council. (2011). Incentives and test-based accountability in education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
55.
New Jersey Department of Education. (2011). Notice of grant opportunity: Excellent Educators for New Jersey (EE4NJ) pilot program teacher effectiveness program. Trenton, NJ: Author.
56.
OddenA.KelleyC. (2002). Paying teachers for what they know and do: New and smarter compensation strategies to improve schools (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
57.
PendergastC. (2008). Intrinsic motivation and incentives. American Economic Review, 98, 201–205.
58.
PerryJ. L.EngbersT. A.JunS. Y. (2009). Back to the future? Performance-related pay, empirical research, and the perils of persistence. Public Administration Review, 69, 39–51.
59.
PodgurskyM. J.SpringerM. G. (2007). Teacher performance pay: A review. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 26, 909–950. doi:10.1002/pam.20292
60.
RowanB.CorrentiR.MillerR. J. (2006). What large-scale survey research tells us about teacher effects on student achievement: Insights from the prospects study of elementary schools. Teachers College Record, 104, 1525–1567.
61.
RyanR. M.DeciE. L. (2006). Self-regulation and the problem of human autonomy: Does psychology need choice, self-determination, and will?Journal of Personality, 74, 1557-1586. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00420.x
62.
SandersW. L.HornS. (1994). The Tennessee value-added assessment system (TVAAS): Mixed-model methodology in educational assessment. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 8, 299–311.
63.
SpringerM. G. (2009). Rethinking teacher compensation policies: Why now, why again? In SpringerM. G. (Ed.), Performance incentives: Their growing impact on American K–12 education (pp. 1–21). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
64.
SpringerM. G.BallouD.HamiltonL. S.Vi-NhuanL.LockwoodJ. R.McCaffreyD. F.. . . StecherB. (2011, March). Teacher pay for performance: Experimental evidence from the project on incentives in teaching (POINT) [Abstract]. Paper presented at the Spring 2011 Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Conference, Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://www.sree.org/conferences/2011/program/downloads/abstracts/136.pdf
65.
SpringerM. G.BallouD.PengA. (2008). Impact of the teacher advancement program on student test score gains: An independent appraisal. Nashville, TN: National Center on Performance Incentives.
66.
SpringerM. G.PaneJ.Vi-NhuanL.McCaffreyD. F.BurnsS. F.HamiltonL. S.StecherB. M. (2012). Team pay for performance: Experimental evidence from the round rock pilot project on team incentives. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34, 367–390.
67.
SupovitzJ. A. (2012). Getting at student understanding—The key to teachers’ use of test data. Teachers College Record, 114(11), 1–29.
68.
Teacher Advancement Program Foundation. (n.d.). Understanding the teacher advancement program. Santa Monica, CA: Author.
69.
Tschannen-MoranM.Woolfolk HoyA.HoyW. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure. Review of Educational Research, 68, 202–248.
70.
U.S. Department of Education. (2009). Race to the top program: Executive summary. Washington, DC: Author.
71.
VroomV. H. (1964). Work and motivation. New York, NY: John Wiley.
WeisbergD.SextonS.MulhernJ.KeelingD. (2009). The widget effect: Our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness. Brooklyn, NY: The New Teacher Project.
74.
WeissJ. A. (2012). Data for improvement, data for accountability. Teachers College Record, 114(11).
75.
YuanK.Vi-NhuanL.McCaffreyD. F.MarshJ. A.HamiltonL. S.StecherB. M.SpringerM. G. (2012). Incentive pay programs do not affect teacher motivation or reported practices: Results from three randomized studies. Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis, 35, 3–22. doi:10.3102/0162373712462625
