Incentive pay for teachers: How Chile made it work
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Protest in Chile in 2011
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Reforms to improve teaching by introducing pay-for-performance schemes usually run into opposition from powerful teacher unions. In the current issue of Governance, Alejandra Mizala and Ben Ross Schneider examine an unusual success story: the introduction of pay incentives for teachers in Chile from 1990 to 2010. The reforms succeeded, Mizala and Schneider conclude, because they were introduced through repeated rounds of negotiations, and also because of the design of the scheme, which introduced collective and then individual incentives for performance. Salary increases also helped to overcome opposition. When students and teachers engaged in large scale demonstrations in 2011, “they called into question nearly all aspects of Chile’s educational system,” the authors say, “but not salary incentives.” Free access to the article.
