Merit Pay and Job Enlargement as Reforms: Incentives,Implementation,and Teacher Response

Based on intensive district case studies, this study presents a comparison of two teacher work reforms. Merit pay gives individual teachers more money to do the same work better. Job enlargement pays them more to do different work. The study suggests that job enlargement is more likely than merit pay to improve teacher motivation. It also enriches teaching practice while merit pay standardizes it. Job enlargement increases intrinsic incentives for teachers, but these must be bought by purchasing more time. The way these reforms play out at different sites will depend on the extent of teacher participation in program design and on the vision for the program projected by top administrators.