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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Education | Study: Teacher bonuses fail to boost test scores | Seattle Times Newspaper

Education | Study: Teacher bonuses fail to boost test scores | Seattle Times Newspaper

Study: Teacher bonuses fail to boost test scores

Offering big bonuses to teachers failed to raise students' test scores in a three-year study released Tuesday that calls into question the Obama administration's push for merit pay to improve education.

Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA —

Offering big bonuses to teachers failed to raise students' test scores in a three-year study released Tuesday that calls into question the Obama administration's push for merit pay to improve education.

The study, conducted in the metropolitan Nashville school system by Vanderbilt University's National Center on Performance Incentives, was described by the researchers as the nation's first scientifically rigorous look at merit pay for teachers.

It found that students whose teachers were offered bonuses of up to $15,000 a year for improved test scores registered the same gains on standardized exams as those whose teachers were given no such incentives.