Helen Ladd and Lucy Sorensen, writing for the Brookings blog, recently explored the concerns associated with within-school turnover, focusing on the churn in middle school core subject areas. Excerpts from their piece appear below: We draw on a recent paper in which we examined how middle schools in North Carolina Read more
According to a new evaluation brief from National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE), providing educators with performance feedback and offering pay-for-performance bonuses can improve student achievement. The evaluation brief synthesizes two recent NCEE impact studies, which evaluated key strategies that can be funded through the federal Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) Read more
Michael Hansen, Diana Quintero, and Li Feng of the Brookings Institute recently explored incentive policies that show evidence of attracting minority teachers. Excerpts from their piece appear below: Many education policymakers and practitioners across the country recognize the need to recruit and retain more racial and ethnic minorities into the Read more
Michael Hartney and Michael Jones recently published a study in Public Administration Review that explores the ability of pay-for-performance salary structures to bring stronger teachers into the classroom. The study, titled “Show WHO the money? Teaching Sorting Practices and Performance Pay across U.S. School Districts” uses data from two waves Read more
The Institute of Education Sciences has released the fourth and final evaluation report on the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants, which were awarded in 2010 to support performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals in high-need schools. The report, conducted by IES’ National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance Read more
Last year, with much fanfare, the Obama administration declared that it would tackle the tricky issue of equitable teacher distribution, calling on states to revise their plans for making sure that high-poverty schools get their fair share of qualified educators. Now most states have answered the call, rewriting plans that Read more
In 2016-17, the Opportunity Culture initiative included more than 110 schools, 1250 teachers, and 34,000 students in 17 sites across 7 states. According to the Public Impact website, Opportunity Culture schools are defined by the following characteristics: Teachers lead the way. Each Opportunity Culture school creates a team of teachers Read more
The Center for American Progress recently released a new Education Resource Strategy report, which offers teacher salary redesign lessons from 10 first-mover districts. Effective teachers are the biggest in-school factor related to student success. Across the country, a diverse set of districts are pioneering innovative approaches to teacher compensation that Read more
There has been much talk in recent years about new incentive-based pay scales for teachers, but often the talk lacks the details to turn the talk into reality. But Baltimore City Public Schools (MD) has created a new pay ladder, and Education Week has published an interesting infographic with the Read more
This new report from TNTP analyzes the impact of lockstep compensation systems, which pay teachers almost exclusively based on years of experience and academic credits, and proposes paying teachers for what really matters: how hard their jobs are and how well they do them. The report shows that paying teachers Read more
Education reformers are working diligently to design new teacher compensation systems and career pathways that reward high-quality teaching, equitably distribute effective teachers, and offer opportunities for advancement without leaving the classroom. In this month’s issue brief, we explore various resources, research reports, and ideas related to teacher compensation to provide Read more
Vanderbilt University has recently put out a new study on teacher retention, which examined a Tennessee program that offered high-performing teachers in the state’s worst schools a $5,000 bonus to stay on another year. The program was fairly small and implementation was uneven, but researchers still found preliminary evidence of Read more
The impact of “Opportunity Culture” schools could be students gaining years of learning, and teachers earning hundreds of thousands more over their careers. In a major policy brief out, Public Impact estimates what a state would gain by implementing “Opportunity Culture” models statewide, using North Carolina as an example for Read more
The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders has a running, “Ask the Team” series of briefs in which they dilute detailed research into concise and readable form. Three briefs released recently focus on performance-based compensation, tiered licensure, and alternate certification. Performance-Based Compensation: Linking Performance to Teacher Salaries This Ask the Read more
One policy response to the challenge of attracting high-performing teachers to low-achieving schools is offering teachers monetary incentives to transfer. This report examines impacts of transfer incentives — including the willingness of teachers to transfer when offered an incentive, teacher retention in the schools to which they transferred, and the Read more
Thomas S. Dee, of Stanford University, and James Wyckoff, of the University of Virginia, have sparked the debate on teacher evaluations with a new working paper which suggests that DCPS’ IMPACT teacher evaluations have proven effective to increase teacher performance and student test scores. IMPACT is the most radical of Read more