Performance Contracting Concept in Education

摘要

Performance contracting is a new and increasingly popular technique in education. Many school districts now have performance contracts with private learning-system firms or groups of teachers. These contracts call for the education of designated groups of students, whose measured achievement determines the amount of the contract payments. The usual measure is the difference in the results of two forms of the same test, given at the beginning and the end of the program. This is the first of three Rand Reports on performance contracting in education. The study is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. This Report consists of two parts. The present volume explores the basic issues and considerations in performance contracting. It is addressed to educational decision makers, particularly those guiding local school districts. The second part is a technical addendum, 'The Performance Contracting Concept, Appendix: A Critique of the Theory (R-699/2). A survey of the state of the art, it summarizes a number of mathematical models that have been developed to analyze contractual incentives, and presents a critique of the theoretical underpinnings of performance contracting. The appendix will be of more interest to theoreticians and model-builders than to decision makers. After tracing the evolution of performance contracting, the Report discusses the concept as it is currently being applied in education. This discussion is necessarily incomplete, since few programs have been completed at the time of publication and little can be said about outcomes. A later Rand Report will analyze the outcomes of some programs after 1970-71 results are available. The final Report will be a Performance Contracting Guide. It will combine the concepts of the first Report with conclusions drawn from program results in the second to produce a general guide on how to plan, conduct, and evaluate performance contracting programs.