IntroductionThe reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2011) has made increasing student achievement and reducing inconsistencies in the dissemination of teacher qualifications a national priority (Guarino, Brown, & Wyse, 2011). Classic fixed salary schemes that only consider teacher education and years of experience have become popular since the 1920s (Koppich, 2005). This traditional system was developed to counteract gender and racial discrimination that was permitted under more unrestricted systems at the time (Dee & Keys, 2004). It was argued that the prevailing system created pay equity between elementary teachers, most of whom were women, and secondary school teachers, most of whom were men (Koppich, 2005). Although this compensation structure failed to recognize that some teaching jobs are more difficult than others and require more skills, the simple standard salary plan has prevailed in thousands of schools and districts across the country (Koppich, 2005). In the early 1980s there was an explosion of merit pay activity. Twenty-nine states had begun some sort of merit pay program for teachers by 1986. Since then, however, nearly all have been relaxed or discontinued (Dee & Keys, 2004). While the idea of ​​merit pay for classroom teachers has been around for several decades, a resurgence of interest has recently emerged in a growing number of districts across the country. This can be attributed to a perceived correlation between student achievement and teacher merit pay and the recent increase in the level of funding for the federal Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF). The TIF program, administered by the United States Department of Education (USDOE), pr...... middle of paper ......l Of Education, 52(1), 5-35.Keys, B.J. and Dee, S. T. (2005). Dollars and meaning. Education Next, 5(1), 60-67.Koppich, J. E. (2005). Not all teachers are the same: A multi-pronged approach to teacher compensation. Education Next, 5(1), 13-15. Podgursky, M., & Springer, M. G. (2007). Credentials and performance: A review of research on teacher pay for performance. Peabody Journal Of Education, 82(4), 551-573.Scott, T. (2011). A nation at risk to win the future: The state of public education in the US Journal For Critical Education Policy Studies, 9(1), 267-316. Smarick, A. (2011). Diplomatic mission: President Obama's path to performance-based pay. Education Next, 11(1), 56-63.What Works Clearinghouse, (. (2011). WWC Brief review of the report “Teacher pay for performance: Evidence from the teaching incentives project”. What Works Clearinghouse,