Teacher Incentive Reforms in Latin America

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Teacher Incentive Reforms in Latin America

• How Can They Help Us Improve Teaching Quality
• and Student Learning?

Ilana Umansky New Approaches to Policy and
Practice for Teacher Educators in the
Americas September 26-29, 2006 Port of Spain,
Trinidad
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Topics to Explore

• Background to this Study
• What Are Incentives and Why Do They Matter?
• How Can We Attract and Retain Good Teachers? And
  How Can We Get Them to Do their Best in the
  Classroom?
• Are Teachers Paid Enough?
• Should All Teachers Be Paid the Same?
• How Does School Organization Affect the
  Incentives Teachers Face?

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Background to this Study
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Summary of Findings from

• Vegas, E. and I. Umansky (2005). Improving
  Teaching and Learning though Effective
  Incentives What Can We Learn from Education
  Reforms in Latin America. Washington, DC The
  World Bank.
• Vegas, E. (Ed.) (2005). Incentives to Improve
  Teaching Lessons from Latin America. Washington,
  DC The World Bank.

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Motivation for Study

• Teachers play the key role in school quality and
  student learning. Attracting and retaining
  qualified teachers, and motivating them to do the
  best work they can is one of the most important
  educational challenges.
• Research Question How do teacher incentive
  reforms in Latin America affect teaching quality
  and student learning?

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Components of the Study

• Theoretical and empirical review of literature on
  teacher incentives
• Statistical analysis of relative teacher salaries
  in 17 Latin American countries
• 7 case studies/evaluations of education reforms
  affecting teachers
• Qualitative case studies of the political economy
  of teacher incentive reforms in two countries

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Research Team
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What Is An Incentive?
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Incentives

• Incentives influence, or attempt to influence,
  behavior and decisions usually through the use
  of awards or punishments.

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For Example
An intended teacher incentive reform can have
both desired or undesired effects
Improved teaching leads to better student learning
Job security linked to student test scores
Cheating on the test or dropping low-performing
students
And an unintended teacher incentive reform can
also have both desired or undesired effects
Teachers feel more confident and teach well
Strong teacher unions make it difficult to fire
teachers
Bad teachers remain teaching indefinitely
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Teacher Incentives can Affect

• Who becomes a teacher
• How long teachers remain in the profession
• Teachers decisions and behavior
• The distribution of teachers

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Examples of Teacher Incentives

• GHANA Educational scholarships for teachers
• USA Several states offer housing incentives
• GUYANA Teachers in rural areas are given a
  hardship bonus
• MEXICO Teachers can receive promotions based,
  in part, on student test scores

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There Are Many Types of Teacher Incentives
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How Can Incentives Attract and Retain Good
Teachers?And How Can They Motivate Teachers to
Do their Best in the Classroom?
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A System to Support High-Quality Teaching and
Learning
GOOD TEACHING AND LEARNING!!!
Effective incentive structure
Sufficient and appropriate resources and
infrastructure
Good pre and in-service education, clear
expectactionsand support.
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What Is An Effective Incentive Structure?

• One that encourages qualified individuals to
  become teachers
• Chile Across-the-board teacher pay raises
• One the encourages good teachers to remain
  teaching
• Mexico Carrera Magisterial
• One that allocates the best teachers to the
  neediest places
• Uruguay Teacher assignment policy
• One that supports great teaching everyday
• Honduras Teacher accountability to community

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Are Teachers Paid Enough?
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How Can We Tell?

• Absolute versus relative salaries
• Do we compare hourly or annual salaries?
• Who do we compare teachers with?

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Comparative Teacher Salaries

• On an hourly basis, teachers in most Latin
  American countries earn more than average
  non-teachers, and more than average workers with
  a secondary education.
• On an hourly basis, teachers in most Latin
  American countries earn hourly salaries similar
  to office, technical, and professional workers.
• Brazil and Nicaragua are exceptions!

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Teachers Salary Structures are Different than
those of Non-teachers
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Chile
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Chile
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Because of this

• Women
• People from rural areas
• People with low education levels
• People with little experience
• Have an incentive to work as teachers.
• But
• Men, and people from urban areas, or with high
  education levels or long experience
• Do not.

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Brasil FUNDEF Teacher Education
INCENTIVE REFORMS IMPACT ON TEACHERS
IMPACT ON STUDENTS
Higher enrollment rates (grades 5-8) Greater
equity between students Fewer over-age
students
New teachers hired, smaller classes Higher
teacher salaries Higher teacher education levels
FUNDEF finance equalization - benefits North and
Northeast, municipalities Legislation requiring
teachers have secondary education
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Are Teachers Paid Enough? Conclusions

• How well (or poorly) teachers are paid influences
  who becomes a teacher
• Teacher pay structure creates incentives for
  women, people from rural areas, and people with
  relatively low education and experience levels to
  teach
• These factors, in turn, affect students
  (learning, enrollment, etc)

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Should All Teachers Be Paid the Same?
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Possibilities for Decompressing Teachers Wages

• Link teacher pay to desired characteristics or
  behaviors like
• Effort
• Hardship
• Results
• Education or Experience

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Substantial Pay Incentives are Already in Place
in a Few Countries
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Merit Pay Does it Work?

• Large variation in teacher quality
• But variation not linked to easily measured
  traits
• And identification of good teachers depends on
  how you measure

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Mexico and Chile Merit Pay
INCENTIVE REFORMS IMPACT ON
STUDENTS
No evidence that teachers who have a good chance
of earning bonus have higher performing students
Mexico Carrera Magisterial
In schools with a good chance of earning reward
students show higher test scores in 1 of 3 rounds
Chile SNED
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What Factors May Explain the Relatively Weak
Impact of Merit Pay Reforms?

• Many teachers have no real possibility of earning
  the reward
• Incentive may not be well targeted to those
  classrooms were we most want to support improved
  teaching
• The magnitude of the bonus may be too small to
  merit the extra effort
• The incentive may not reward actual or sustained
  improvements in teaching and learning

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Bolivia Hardship Pay
INCENTIVE REFORMS IMPACT ON
STUDENTS
No difference in student performance between
these neighboring classrooms
Pay for rural teachers
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Should All Teachers Be Paid the Same? Conclusions

• In nearly all countries, differential pay is
  based on education and experience
• Some countries use differential pay in much more
  diverse ways
• It is very difficult to objectively identify
  good teachers
• Differential pay in Chile, Mexico, and Bolivia
  does not appear to be improving the quality of
  teaching or learning significantly

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Effective Incentives Questions of Design and
Implementation

• Is the outcome easily measurable?
• Is the outcome easily corruptible?
• Are perverted incentives generated?
• Does the incentive affect the right teachers?
• Is the incentive large enough to stimulate a
  response?
• Is the outcome really what we want to reward?

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How Does School Organization Affect the
Incentives Teachers Face?
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School-Based Management

• SBM can create incentives for teachers through
  creating local accountability, increasing
  professional autonomy, weakening job security
• Three cases in Central America EDUCO in El
  Salvador, PROHECO in Honduras, School Autonomy in
  Nicaragua

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Central America School-based Management
INCENTIVE REFORMS IMPACT ON TEACHERS
IMPACT ON STUDENTS
In 3rd grade Higher Spanish scores No impact on
math
More education Less experience More work
hours Fewer absences Lower salaries
El Salvador EDUCO
In 3rd grade Higher Spanish scores No impact on
math In 6th grade Lower Spanish scores Lower
math scores
None
Nicaragua Autonomia Escolar
In 3rd grade Higher math scores Higher Spanish
scores Higher science scores Lower repetition
rates
Less education Less experience More work
hours Fewer absences More traditional
pedag. Lower salaries
Honduras PROHECO
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How Does School-based Management Affect Teacher
Incentives? Conclusions

• SBM does not necessarily result in well-run
  schools and empowered communities
• Teachers in SBM schools do exhibit positive
  behavioral changes
• There are some negative implications of SBM on
  teachers
• SBM has mixed impact on student learning

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Conclusions

• Incentives impact who becomes a teachers, whether
  they remain teaching, how they are distributed,
  and how good a job they do every day.
• Nearly all reforms impact the incentives teachers
  face, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
• There are many different kinds of incentives, not
  only monetary.
• Incentives exist, whether intentional or
  unintentional, and they have both intended and
  unintended effects.
• The current incentive structures in many
  countries are frequently not well-designed or
  implemented.
• Incentive reforms are promising but difficult to
  design and implement effectively.

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Contact info

• Ilana Umansky ilanaumansky_at_yahoo.com
• Emiliana Vegas evegas_at_worldbank.org