Incentivizing teachers through salaries is an avenue toward progress at Tom Bloch’s University Academy.

Tom Bloch: I think if we raise our standards in our urban schools and if we can possibly attract a better, more qualified pool of teachers down the road, we can do fantastic things in inner city schools. In our school, University Academy, for example, we pay performance pay. In other words, in addition to a teacher’s salary, we have an incentive for a teacher to do well in the classroom.

And so we attract a slightly different type of teacher, one who is motivated to do well. And I think it’s important, when you look at other service businesses not only in the United States but around the world, it’s common for managers to get incentives, financial incentives to do a good job. But we’ve never really done much of that in the area of education, which really is a service business, and I think if we can pay teachers competitively, and attract and retain them, we can do great things in this country.

Recorded on: October 13, 2008