People seem to be confused about what performance-based pay means, though.
When asked how teacher salaries should be determined, the academic degree a teacher has earned and the years of teaching experience a teacher has were more popular responses than how a teacher's students perform on a test. We think that basing pay on student performance will become more popular as value-added assessment, a statistical technique for isolating a teacher's contribution to student test scores, becomes more widespread. This method prevents evaluation systems from penalizing teachers who are assigned students who start off farther behind. An article in the Hartford Courant this week describes the process by which all second-year teachers in Connecticut are evaluated to determine whether they will receive a license to teach. New teachers in the state must submit a portfolio which includes lesson plans, student work samples, a videotape, and a daily journal.