Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives, presented social science theory and performance-based teacher pay for a National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality webcast examining the policy, research, and practice of performance-based compensation. Springer discussed the promise and pitfalls of performance-based compensation and why educational researchers and policymakers must turn to field experimentation and independent appraisal to determine whether performance-based pay policies constitute an effective policy innovation for local schools in the United States.