Performance Pay: Florida

Retaining Effective Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should support performance pay but in a manner that recognizes its appropriate uses and limitations.

Best Practice
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Performance Pay: Florida results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/FL-Performance-Pay-9

Analysis of Florida's policies

Starting in 2014, Florida will require that districts tie teacher compensation to teacher performance. 

A teacher determined to be highly effective will receive a salary increase that must be greater than the highest annual salary adjustment available to that individual through any other salary schedule adopted by the school district. A teacher determined to be effective will receive a salary increase between 50 and 75 percent of the annual salary increase provided to a highly effective teacher.

Citation

Recommendations for Florida

State response to our analysis

Florida recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.

Research rationale

Research on merit pay in 28 industrialized countries from Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance found that students in countries with merit pay policies in place were performing at a level approximately one year's worth of schooling higher on international math and science tests than students in countries without such policies (2011). 

Erik Hanushek found that a teacher one standard deviation above the mean effectiveness annually generates $400,000 in student future earnings for a class size of 20. See Hanushek, Erik A. "The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 16606 (December 2010).

In addition, numerous conference papers published by the National Center on Performance Incentives reinforce the need to recognize the limitations and appropriate uses of performance pay. See: http://www.performanceincentives.org/.