Running Head : TEACHER MERIT PAY AND STUDENT TEST SCORES 1 Teacher Merit Pay and Student Test Scores : A Meta-Analysis

In recent years, teacher merit pay programs have garnered considerable political and financial support, spurring rapid growth in the number of research studies investigating the association between teacher pay incentives and student test scores. The burgeoning research literature on this topic presents a novel opportunity to synthesize our understanding of merit pay and its influence on student test scores. This study fills that role as a meta-analysis of reported findings from 44 primary studies. Our meta-analysis finds that the presence of a merit pay program is associated with a modest, statistically significant, positive effect on student test scores (0.052 standard deviations). We also find that effect sizes are highly sensitive to program design and study context, which suggests that while some merit pay programs have the potential to improve student test scores in some contexts, researchers and policymakers should pay close attention to how the program is structured and implemented.