[bombcar]

That last has been basically tried, and you end up everyone always "exceeding expectations" unless you tie it to some sort of standardized testing (which has its own issues).

Your best bet may be removing the obstacles that people who want to do a good job encounter (for example, the best teachers seem to often leave higher paid public teaching jobs to go to private schools that pay less - investigate why?).

[WalterBright]

There are always going to be issues around evaluating student achievement. But by and large, compensation based on results works very well in the marketplace. And we certainly see the results in the public schools of no merit pay. It's hard to see how it could be worse.

BTW, MIT has gone back to SATs. The reason is simple - despite all the controversy about SAT validity, when the rubber meets the road the SAT does a better job than anything else at evaluating candidates.