Pay-for-Performance Teacher Compensation

Denver’s groundbreaking campaign to introduce performance-based pay for teachers captured national and international attention and has paved the way for similar efforts elsewhere. Based on unprecedented labor-management collaboration, the newly implemented ProComp compensation plan is the most advanced in the country. Each teacher’s pay is based on several factors: evaluated performance, professional development efforts, and willingness to work with at-risk populations, as well as student achievement. Denver’s ProComp plan has raised the debate over teacher compensation to a new level. In this book, Phil Gonring, Paul Teske, and Brad Jupp—among the key players in this successful come-from-behind campaign—offer the inside story of the ProComp initiative. They describe how entrepreneurial behavior within the teachers union and support from outside philanthropic groups propelled the plan from a cutting-edge concept into concrete policy.