A new paper based on research in India sheds some light on whether rewarding teachers for students' performance makes a difference. Karthik Muralidharan and Venkatesh Sundararaman — from the University of California at San Diego and the World Bank, respectively — looked at 500 schools and 55,000 students.
Their conclusion: pay incentives work. They write:
We find that performance-based bonus payments to teachers were a significantly more cost effective way of increasing student test scores compared to spending a similar amount of money unconditionally on additional schooling inputs.
Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution has more.
Podcast bonus: Which Teacher's Worth More?
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