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This article discusses what a Tennessee experiment tells about merit pay. Though the dramatic effects that teachers have on student achievement are indisputable, the exact ingredients of effective teaching are anything but settled. Questions about how to value experience, education, certification, and pedagogical skills---the big four of teacher inputs--have created one of the most highly contentious fields of inquiry in education, particularly since they have clear implications for the design of teacher compensation systems. In 2000, public elementary and secondary schools spent roughly $180 billion on teachers' salaries and benefits, about half of their total expenditures. Most of it was distributed according to fixed salary schedules that considered only a teacher's education and years of experience. This system has its origins in the first half of the 20th century and was partly a response to the racial and gender discrimination that existed under more discretionary systems at that time. Critics of merit pay argue that the falloff in such programs was due to the fundamental technical difficulties of accurately identifying effective teachers and rewarding good teaching practices. Proponents of performance-based pay insist that these experiments were too limited in scope and were destined to fail in the face of stiff opposition from teachers and unions. In this article, the authors present two Tennessee merit pay programs: (1) Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio); and (2) Career Ladder Evaluation System. (Contains 2 figures.)

The racial interactions between teachers and students can influence student performance in several ways. For example, pupils may trust and respect someone with whom they share a salient characteristic, making learning come more easily. Likewise, a teacher of the same race may serve as a more effective role model, boosting students' confidence and enthusiasm for learning. However, while such role-model effects are widely believed to be important, there is actually little direct empirical evidence that they exist. This study, known as Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio), makes use of data from a randomized field trial conducted in Tennessee to produce higher-quality information on this controversial subject than has been available previously. Although Project STAR was not designed to evaluate the relationship between students' performance and their assignment to teachers of their own race, the study's randomized pairings of students and teachers provided an excellent opportunity to do so. The results showed that Black students learned more from Black teachers and White students from White teachers, suggesting that the racial dynamics within classrooms may contribute to the persistent racial gap in student performance, at least in Tennessee. These results clearly support the conventional assumption that recruiting minority teachers can generate important achievement gains among minority students. However, they also suggest that a typically overlooked cost of such efforts may be a meaningful reduction in the achivement of non-minority students. (Contains 3 figures.)

A common criticism of merit-pay plans is that they fail to systematically target rewards to the most effective teachers. This study presents new evidence on this issue by evaluating data from Tennessee's Career Ladder Evaluation System and the Project STAR class-size experiment. Because the students and teachers participating in the experiment were randomly assigned, inferences about the relative quality of teachers certified by the career ladder should be unbiased. The results indicate that Tennessee's career ladder had mixed success in rewarding teachers who increased student achievement. Assignment to career-ladder teachers increased mathematics scores by roughly 3 percentile points but generally had smaller and statistically insignificant effects on reading scores.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the anger of individuals who have provided direct patient care to loved ones who are living with or who have died from AIDS. The sample consisted of eight individuals who are currently involved in an AIDS service organization in northeast Tennessee. Data were collected using semistructured taped interviews. At the beginning of the study, two group interviews were conducted. Subsequently, each of the participants was interviewed privately. Extrapunitive and intropunitive anger were predominant themes in each of the interviews. Participants also reported ways of coping with their anger. Nurses can suggest these strategies to other caregivers who are experiencing anger. Recommendations for additional nursing interventions are offered.

The relationship of selected predictor variables to blood pressures of freshman students (N = 323) attending rural, urban, and suburban high schools was examined. Independent variables included 7 anthropometric and demographic factors, 10 life-style factors, and 38 stress factors. Significant predictors of higher systolic pressure in the regression analysis were age, gender, body mass index, and urban residence. Urban subjects also had poorer health habits. Significant predictors of diastolic pressure were body mass index, smoking, and lack of regular exercise. Gender differences in amount and types of stressors were independent of geographic location. Males and females exhibited different dietary and exercise patterns; males exercised more, but had less healthy eating habits.