TEACHER COMMITMENT, WORKING-CONDITIONS, AND DIFFERENTIAL INCENTIVE POLICIES

The push for more complex, intellectually demanding approaches to teac hing suggests that teacher commitment will continue to be important fo r effective education. This article develops a framework for assessing how differential incentive policies affect teacher commitment. It ide ntifies seven key workplace conditions that contribute to teacher comm itment: job design characteristics, feedback, autonomy, participation, collaboration, learning opportunities, and resources. This framework is used to assess the effects of such differential incentive policies as merit pay and career ladders. The selection mechanisms in these two programs are found to reduce autonomy and collaboration, but the job enrichment aspects of career ladders are found to increase participati on, collaboration, and resources. We recommend combining policies that increase participation, collaboration, and feedback rather than conti nuing to experiment with differential incentives.