Making a Big Leap: Charlotte-Mecklenberg
When the federal government created the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), North Carolina’s
Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district threw its hat in the ring, and won a five-year award
that started in 2007.
Among other things, the district promised to create a measurement system that would
enable performance-based pay incentives, and to deploy more highly rated teachers in 20
high-need district schools. It named its program “Leadership for Educators’ Advanced
Performance” (LEAP), and got $12,398,464 from Washington, with a local match of
$8,641,327.
LEAP developed Student Learning Objectives to help guide data analysis and instructional
improvement. It piloted a value-added growth measure and compensation system in 2009–
2010, and then implemented it in 2010–2011. It partnered with the national nonprofit
Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC) on its initial proposal and
implementation.
What’s the result? Generally positive, but not overwhelmingly so.
one (say, with 24) taught by
someone with less skill.
But Richard Rothstein, senior
researcher at the Economic
Policy Institute and formerly
chief education writer at the
New York Times, sees things
differently.
services children receive,
rather than focus on
purported teacher
inadequacies or elevating
star teachers.
He also contests the idea
that loading classrooms with
more students is of little
consequence, since smaller
He agrees that teaching in an class sizes are notably
overwhelmingly minority and important to teachers – and
are correlated with better
low-income urban school is
outcomes. Citing the
different from teaching in
Tennessee class size study,
wealthy suburbs, and that
teachers in challenging urban he said, “There’s no dispute
schools deserve more money. about the benefit of small
classes for highly
But he believes it’s more
disadvantaged students in
important to end those
schools’ economic and racial the early grades.” Rothstein
says the approach must be
isolation and increase the
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holistic – and include smaller
class sizes, early education
from zero to five, highquality after-school and
summer programs, and
full-service health clinics in
schools. Why health clinics?
A multitude of reasons,
including this:
“Disadvantaged children
don’t get screened for vision
problems. They can’t read if
they can’t see.”
Although Title I funding gives
more funding to schools
educating children from lowincome families, Rothstein
explains that the amount is
not adequate, even when it is
50 percent more than what
A CTAC report last year, “It’s More than Money,” explained the challenges and interim
successes. While the program has been associated with beneficial staffing changes and
better student outcomes, North Carolina hit economic difficulties that had dramatic
consequences for schools across the state. Teachers and administrators were laid off, and
progress slowed. The number of schools in the program dropped to 11.
But CTAC emphasizes that outcomes in the TIF-LEAP schools still bested those in other
non-TIF-LEAP schools. One of the most important conclusions from a study of multiple sites
is that incentive pay alone, or “merit pay” based on student test scores alone, shouldn’t be
confused with an effective, integrated approach.
“While performance-based compensation is a key element of each TIF grant, anyone who
confuses the initiatives in these nine sites with failed merit pay schemes would be mistaken.
… Teaching is a complex task that cannot be improved simply by paying teachers for
improvements in student test scores. Improving teaching practice requires accurate and
fair assessment of performance, support for improvement, the spread of teaching expertise
through career advancement, recruitment and retention of high performers, and an education
system that aligns compensation with performance goals.”
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