According to the Texas Education Agency, less than half of Texas school districts agreed to participate in the state's new merit pay plan for teachers. The agency reports that only 442 of the state's 1,033 districts, or 43 percent, opted to take part in the $148 million District Awards for Teacher Excellence program.

Under the state's criteria for the plan, teachers are rewarded for improved test scores and other indicators of student achievement. Some districts may have declined to participate because they already have local incentive pay plans, or do not have the 15 percent matching funds required to participate in the awards program.

While districts were invited to sign up for the plan by last October, teachers will vote later this year on whether to incorporate merit pay at their school. If the majority of teachers at a school decline to participate, it will kill the program at that school.

The plan recommends an enticing $3,000 bonus per teacher, though there's only enough money to reward about 50,000 teachers (one in six). As in Texas, teachers across the country are uniting against incentive pay, seeing the plans as ploys by legislatures to avoid pay increases for all teachers.
                                                                                                             --John Rosales

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