Executive Summary Mississippi faces a serious challenge in its classrooms: too many students fail to achieve. This is not new, nor is it unique to Mississippi. Educators across the country grapple with this same problem. Solutions share a common focus: the teacher. Educators know that the single factor that impacts student learning most directly is effective teaching (Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 2007). When an effective teacher is in the classroom, students learn—the crux of a simple, yet very difficult, solution. Implicit in this solution are these questions: 1. What is “effective teaching”? 2. How do we know students are learning? Fueled by federal Race to the Top and Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants, educators across the country are aggressively answering these questions as they create, sometimes invent, new processes that will ensure that every student is taught by an effective teacher in every classroom. Mississippi is following suit. The new teacher appraisal process clearly identifies and defines competencies that combine for effective teaching, competencies which Mississippi now requires teachers to demonstrate. Throughout the school year, principals will appraise every teacher’s demonstrated level of mastery of each required competency. Weak areas will be noted, action plans structured, and progress reappraised. No teacher is left behind, no competency overlooked. On the surface, the second question seems straightforward. The answer, however, brings accountability for results clearly into view. Measuring student achievement, by definition, measures the teacher’s success. This sensitive and controversial issue for teachers calls for special attention and planning. Among the many actions educators are using in comprehensive planning is performance-based compensation (PBC), a long-standing, successful business practice that links employee accountabilities for performance with rewards for success. Encouraging teacher accountability and providing compensation to support it, Race to the Top and TIF grants require PBC systems in funded programs. Again, Mississippi is no exception. Mississippi’s TIF grant has funded the development of a full range of teacher incentives, including a PBC system. This work offers a design and implementation plan for a uniquely-tailored PBC system for the state.
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