A reader wrote in today on my old blog -- perhaps in response to Sam Dillon’s NYT article on the slow but steady rise of merit pay initiatives -- to share a deeply negative experience with one of the merit pay models that’s being used in several places, the Teacher Advancement Program (now called NIET): “The TAP program was the worst thing to ever happen to my school,” writes Smithie. “After 2 years, almost all experienced teachers left, including half of the TAP Leadership team...Additionally, the cost of the program is exorbitant. Off the charts.”
Specific complaints aside, is it the TAP model that most districts are adopting with their TIF money, or are there other, better ones -- from Odden, or wherever? Have the different models been compared in terms of how they work? Or is there as yet no single model that seems to work “everywhere”?