Is incentive pay an incentive to cheat?

"I’ve worked for Atlanta Public Schools for roughly 5 of my 6 years as a classroom teacher and during that time I encountered a strange phenomenon; educators were being given bonuses for increasing test scores. This was strange and interesting to me for a few reasons; (1) I wondered why I was being paid extra to do what I was hired to do in the first place. (2) Everyone tied to the schools that increased tests scores or met system metrics received the bonuses including custodial staff, bus drivers, and cafeteria staff. (3) Wouldn’t tying incentive pay directly to test scores lead to an increased focus on teaching to the test? (4) Wouldn’t some people be tempted to cheat?"

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"The ironic thing about the entire situation is that in Atlanta, it wasn’t district policy to tie a teacher’s annual evaluation directly to the performance of his or her students on any particular test.  Rather, annual evaluations were based on several factors that had to be directly observed by school administrators such as classroom management, planning and preparation, rigor of lessons, etc. Essentially, if these teachers did cheat, they did so out of greed, not out of fear or losing their jobs. Perhaps administrative pressure to constantly show improvements or maintain an unrealistic level of performance for year to year contributed to the climate as well. But imagine if the employment decisions of the teachers in question were actually attached to the relative performance of their students on tests. What type of fallout would we be facing now? Mrs. Rhee? Mr. Gates? I hope you’re both reading this."

Is incentive pay an incentive to cheat?