Pay-for-performance is a popular public education reform, but there is little evidence about the characteristics of a well-designed incentive pay plan for teachers. Some of the literature suggests that effective incentive plans must offer relatively large awards to induce behavioral changes. On the other hand, the experimental economics literature suggests that plans with only a handful of awardees can be less effective at changing behavior than plans that offer an array of possible awards. Still other research suggests that group-based incentives are the most effective strategy when teamwork and cooperation are integral to the production process—as is arguably the case in education. This study takes advantage of a pilot pay-for-performance program in Texas to explore incentive design not only from the perspective of the employer—by examining changes in teacher productivity and retention—but also from the perspective of the employee—by examining the preferences revealed by the incentives teachers design for themselves. We find that when given the opportunity, teachers design relatively weak, group-oriented incentive pay plans. In turn, those relatively weak incentives do not appear to be associated with any significant changes in teacher productivity, although they are correlated with teacher turnover, which, in the long run, could theoretically improve student outcomes.

中文翻译：

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为公立学校教师设计激励措施：来自德克萨斯州激励薪酬计划的证据

绩效工资是一项流行的公共教育改革，但很少有证据表明精心设计的教师奖励计划的特点。一些文献表明，有效的激励计划必须提供相对较大的奖励以诱发行为改变。另一方面，实验经济学文献表明，只有少数获奖者的计划在改变行为方面比提供一系列可能奖项的计划更不有效。还有其他研究表明，当团队合作和合作是生产过程不可或缺的部分时，基于群体的激励是最有效的策略，这在教育中可以说是有争议的。这项研究利用德克萨斯州的绩效工资试点计划，不仅从雇主的角度（通过检查教师的生产力和保留率的变化），而且从员工的角度（通过检查偏好）来探索激励设计。通过激励教师揭示自己的设计。我们发现，如果有机会，教师会设计相对薄弱的，面向群体的激励性薪酬计划。反过来，那些相对较弱的激励机制似乎与教师工作效率的任何重大变化无关，尽管它们与教师流动率相关，从长远来看，从理论上讲，这可以改善学生的学习成绩。