Metro

Study slams teach bonus

Teacher bonuses don’t pay.

A three-year program that rewarded teachers with extra money if their schools improved student performance did not produce the hoped-for results, according to a new study.

The conclusion by Harvard economist Roland Fryer came after he compared the roughly 200 schools in the $75 million program to a control group of similar schools whose teachers did not get bonuses.

“I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior,” concluded Fryer, who formerly served as the Department of Education’s Chief Equality Officer.

“If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools,” he added.

When the city and the United Federation of Teachers reached a deal on the unique program in 2007, Mayor Bloomberg hailed it as “historic” and as a first step toward merit pay.

But unlike traditional merit-pay programs that reward teachers solely for their own students’ work, instructors were able to earn bonuses if their schools made gains as a whole — based largely on math and reading test scores.

The average pay-out per teacher, which was determined by a team of educators at each school, was $3,000.

Despite their enthusiasm for the program when it launched in 2007, education officials were relatively restrained in their reaction.

“We are currently reviewing Dr. Fryer’s analysis and believe it will provide valuable insights for our work in this arena moving forward,” said a DOE spokeswoman.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew — whose predecessor wrangled favorable pension reforms from the city in exchange for signing off on the deal — was more blunt in his assessment.

“We have so much clear research that individual merit pay doesn’t work, and now there’s evidence that group merit pay doesn’t work,” he said. “So the evidence is showing us that merit pay doesn’t work in education.”

A separate study of the program by the RAND Corp. is due this spring, officials said.