by Larry Sand
Despite resistance from the teachers’ unions, we must implement merit-based pay for teachers and expand parental choice to improve educational outcomes.
The recently released scores from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card, offer little good news. The results show that 2025 test scores remain below 2012 levels for both nine- and 13-year-olds. The only positive is that nine-year-olds made slight gains since the COVID-19-related shutdowns earlier this decade.
Currently, there are many opinions on how to improve this sorry state of affairs. Banning cell phones in schools and emphasizing the importance of books are just two of the more popular remedies.
But there is much more we can do to improve student learning. One idea is to establish merit pay, or “pay for performance,” so that educators who demonstrate classroom excellence are paid more than their less-talented peers. Several recent studies suggest that performance pay benefits students.
In South Carolina, researchers examined a comprehensive teacher improvement program funded by the federal government. It included pay incentives tied to student test scores, career advancement opportunities, and additional professional development.
As noted by Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum, “The researchers compared students in middle schools that adopted this program, starting in 2007, against similar schools that didn’t participate. They found benefits that carried on into high school. Students’ 10th-grade test scores rose, and their chances of graduating high school increased by about 4 percentage points.”
In Texas, Jacob Kirksey, a professor at Texas Tech, studied an initiative that allocates additional funding to school districts that adopt a merit-pay plan. Teachers designated as high-performing receive salary increases of several thousand dollars.
Kirksey found that standardized test scores rose. Small benefits of the project emerged soon after adoption and grew over the next few years. Teacher retention also increased, and effective teachers, in particular, were more likely to remain on the job.
Also, Arkansas implemented a new program called the “Arkansas Teaching, Learning, and Assessment System,” featuring higher teacher pay and performance-based bonuses.
Proficiency scores rose across all major areas from 2024 to 2026, with mathematics increasing from 36.4 percent to 44.2 percent, science from 35.6 percent to 44 percent, and English language arts from 33.8 percent to 39.5 percent. Overall proficiency rose from 36.9 percent last year to 42.2 percent in 2026.
However, merit pay isn’t possible where teachers’ unions rule the roost. In those districts, educators are part of an industrial-style “step and column” salary regimen, receiving raises based on years of service and on completing (often meaningless) professional development classes. Great teachers are worth more—a lot more—and should receive higher pay than their less capable colleagues. Any suggestion to expand merit pay, which would turn teachers into independent professionals, is a red flag for teachers’ unions, which view educators as identical dues-paying automatons.
The second major way to increase student learning is the national tax-credit scholarship plan. The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) is a dollar-for-dollar tax credit program that will take effect next year. It allows taxpayers nationwide to donate up to $1,700 to a scholarship-granting organization (SGO) and apply that donation to reduce their federal tax bill. The SGO then allocates funds to provide scholarships that cover expenses such as tuition at private and religious schools, textbooks, tutoring, educational therapies, transportation, technology, and other education-related costs. Students—including those in public schools—whose households earn up to three times the local median income will be eligible for these scholarships.
So far, Education Week’s tracker has identified 31 states that will opt into the federal tax-credit scholarship, while two Democratic governors (in Minnesota and Wisconsin) have said their states won’t participate. The remaining state leaders and the D.C. mayor have not yet made formal decisions.
It’s worth noting that tax credits are not a new concept: there are currently 22 tax-credit scholarship programs in 18 states.
Importantly, while school choice has traditionally been a Republican issue, the federal program enjoys strong support from leading Democrats. Leading the charge is Jorge Elorza, president of Democrats for Education Reform, who states, “There’s an education crisis that we have throughout the country. The outcomes have declined over the past decade, and kids are struggling. It’s incumbent on all of us to consider every option and every tool that can help us meet the diverse needs of every single child.”
ECCA is very popular with the general public. According to a recent survey, 64 percent of voters support it, while only 19 percent oppose it.
Needless to say, the major fly in the ointment is the competition-phobic teachers’ unions, which are threatened by any change to the government-union education Leviathan.
On June 23, the latest attempt by the unions to quash the program took the form of an open letter sent to the nation’s undecided Democratic governors by Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten—the presidents of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The missive urged the state leaders to reject the school choice effort, hysterically labeling it a “grave and urgent threat to the public schools that serve nearly 90 percent of the nation’s K–12 students.”
The union bosses asserted, “Public education is a core value of our communities and the foundation of a thriving democracy. Every child deserves access to a high-quality education in well-supported public schools,” adding that “the program is a Trojan horse carrying near-universal K–12 private school vouchers into every state that participates—even states where voters have rejected vouchers at the ballot box.”
Using a mafia-like tone, the letter threatened the governors, warning that accepting the program would invite the unions’ political wrath, which could be costly. The unions do indeed spend oodles on politics. A report released in April by Defending Education found that the two national teachers’ unions have donated nearly $700 million to left-leaning political groups and causes since 2015.
It’s clear that the war between teacher-union dominance and the needs of American families is in full swing. Ultimately, it’s a battle over the country’s future. All good people must acknowledge this and rise to the challenge posed by the teachers’ unions’ seemingly insurmountable power and fight for changes that benefit children.
Photo: Large group of happy students raising their hands to answer the teacher's question during a class at elementary school.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a
nonpartisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and
the general public with reliable and balanced information about
professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views
presented here are strictly his own.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/30/two-winners-in-education-merit-pay-and-school-choice/
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