Effectively Rewarding and Retaining Teachers:
A Brief for the Texas Teaching Commission
This brief examines the reward and retention components of the human capital continuum by exploring new trends in
teacher compensation – including those in Texas – and emerging ideas about how to reduce teacher attrition. It asks its
readers to consider whether the single salary schedule and state mandated minimum salary schedules allow school
districts to respond to the demands of 21st century classrooms and to labor markets. It posits that compensation is a tool
that can be used to both attract and retain talent and promote student outcomes and suggests that retention efforts
should focus not on all teachers but specifically on top talent. It concludes with a series of questions for the Texas
Teaching Commission to answer as the state considers how it can help its school districts reward and retain its teachers
to achieve the outcomes it expects for students. In its discussion of teacher compensation, the brief uses the terms
“performance pay,” “incentive pay,” “compensation reform” and “strategic compensation,” interchangeably.
Effectively Rewarding Teachers
A Brief History of Teacher Pay
Teacher compensation has evolved over time to reflect changes in the
economy and society. From the days of the one-room schoolhouse
when teachers were paid with room and board and often lived in the
houses of their students’ parents, compensation shifted to a salary
system in the early years of the 20th century with the arrival of a more
advanced economy. In this system, secondary teachers received higher
salaries than elementary school teachers did. This form of
differentiated pay was based on the belief that greater levels of
education were required to teach secondary school. This “grade-based”
system, however, also discriminated against women and minorities,
paying them less than white men.
MIDLAND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT (First 16 Steps)
2012 - 2013 SALARY PLACEMENT FOR TEACHERS
YRS
Bachelor’s
DEGREE
Master’s
DEGREE
Master’s
+30 HOURS
Doctorate
DEGREE
EXP
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
ANNUAL
$45,000
$45,200
$45,400
$45,650
$45,950
$46,250
$46,600
$46,950
$47,150
$47,350
$47,550
$47,750
$48,150
$48,500
$49,200
$49,650
$50,250
ANNUAL
$46,300
$46,500
$46,700
$46,950
$47,250
$47,550
$47,900
$48,250
$48,450
$48,650
$48,850
$49,050
$49,450
$49,800
$50,500
$50,950
$51,550
ANNUAL
$46,800
$47,000
$47,200
$47,450
$47,750
$48,050
$48,400
$48,750
$48,950
$49,150
$49,350
$49,550
$49,950
$50,300
$51,000
$51,450
$52,050
ANNUAL
$47,600
$47,800
$48,000
$48,250
$48,550
$48,850
$49,200
$49,550
$49,750
$49,950
$50,150
$50,350
$50,750
$51,100
$51,800
$52,250
$52,850
Seen in this light, the arrival of the single salary schedule in the 1930’s
and 1940’s represented important progress and the advance of civil
rights, as it ensured that women and minorities were paid the same as
white men and that elementary teachers received the same wages as
secondary educators. The salary schedule advanced all teachers regardless of race, gender or grade level taught the
same way each year and institutionalized the importance of a college education, essentially mandating a college degree
for all teachers – a remedy for an era when it was not required for primary teachers. Today, the single salary schedule
operates in nearly every school district in America. Even when school districts adopt performance pay, most simply pile
bonus awards on top of their existing salary scales. Today, we refer to the single salary scale as a “steps and lanes”
system, with steps acknowledging years of service and lanes recognizing levels of education, as in the example above
from Midland.i
1|P a g e
Critiques of the Single Salary Scale
Though it once represented a critical advance in the way teachers are paid and has the added bonus of being both
simple and predictable, the single salary schedule is now the regular subject of debate as educators and policy-makers
discuss whether it has outlived its usefulness. Its critics argue that its incentives are misplaced on longevity and level of
education, that it does not align with the goals of school districts – which includes student learning and the retention of
talent – and fails to respond to the reality of 21st century labor markets.
The single salary schedule provides teachers with an incentive to pay for advanced degrees, but research suggests that
except in a couple of content areas, advanced degrees have little connection to improvements in student achievement.ii
Researchers Eric Hanushek and Steven G. Rifkin conducted their own analysis of research on the connection between
teacher characteristics (such as level of education or credential) and student outcomes and concluded, “Perhaps most
remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by
student outcomes.” In their report, they also remind us that more than half of current teachers in the United States have
a master’s degree or more.iii
Why is this significant? A 2009 report by the Center for American Progress pegs the average cost of the master’s degree
bump at $174 per pupil in the United States. Texas has one of the lowest master’s degree rates in the country (27%) and
one of the lowest average payout rates for the degree ($1,423)iv making its payout only $27 per student. Critics of the
single salary schedule suggest that districts should be able to direct money paid out for master’s toward other
incentives.
The single salary schedule also rewards longevity; yet increasingly researchers are suggesting that experience matters
only to a point. There appears to be a connection between experience and effectiveness only in the early stages of a
teacher’s career, with that connection leveling off after the first three years.v What’s more, in the nation’s largest school
districts novice teachers are typically rewarded less in their steps than are veteran teachers, with novice teachers
receiving annual salary increases of just $556 and veteran teachers receiving annual raises that average $2,614 – nearly
five times that of beginning teachers. Therefore, when experience does in fact matter, the scale does not recognize it.vi
What is missing in the single salary schedule, therefore, is an incentive that acknowledges the connection between
teacher practice and student learning.
The Single Salary Schedule and Market Forces
Finally, the single salary schedule does not account for current market forces and enable school districts to compete
with each other and with other professions for talent. Take, for example, STEM teachers. A 2010 study in Washington
State finds that despite the state’s best efforts to improve STEM education, STEM teachers are on average paid less than
their non-STEM peers, the result of more frequent turnover and, as a result, less experienced and lower paid STEM
teachers. The researchers conclude that contributing to this higher turnover is that the opportunity cost for STEM
teachers may be too great, that the possibility of much higher wages provides a powerful incentive for them to leave the
profession. Moreover, the researchers suggest that the opportunity cost for STEM teachers may be much greater than
for other teachers, who operate in different labor markets. The idea here is that a teacher with a chemistry or applied
mathematics degree has much greater earning potential than someone with a non-STEM degree, such as physical
education, foreign language or art, for instance. The researchers conclude: “If a salary schedule instead tied wages to
some measure of labor market value (say average salary of graduates with similar subject matter expertise), we might
expect to find that math and science teachers routinely ended up with higher pay than their peers.”vii Therefore, if
school districts had flexibility to offer differentiated entry-level salaries that reflected opportunity cost, they could
compete for talent that currently escapes them in greater numbers than they would hope.
2|P a g e
Overview of Emerging Practices: District Innovation and State Policy Frameworks and Support
Responding to concerns about the single salary schedule and its disconnect between market forces and the goals of
public education, an increasing number of school districts have used structural and financial support from their states –
including most significantly Texas – and sometimes significant funding from the U.S. Department of Education through
its Teacher Incentive Fund to design new compensation systems. Typically, the authors of these new systems answer a
common set of questions to arrive at their design of choice:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Should the new system reward individual, group, or school wide-performance?
Should the system pay bonuses or result in sustained increases?
Should the new system use a salary grid or one, two or three index amounts?
Should a new system be voluntary or mandatory? If it is mandatory, should it grandfather in currently employed
staff and, if so, do we hold them harmless so they do not lose income?
5. For what outcomes do we want to provide incentives? How can we use these incentives to accomplish our
goals?
In answering these questions, early adopters of performance pay programs have implemented systems that usually
include one or more of the elements detailed in the table below. However, it is too early to call them best practices.
This brief calls them “emerging practices.”
Reward Student
Growth/Achievement
Reward Knowledge
and Skills
Reward Response to
Market Incentives
Reward educators for
Movement on Career
Ladder/Pathway
Systems
Reward for Successful
Evaluations









Emerging Practices in Performance Pay
Bonuses or permanent salary increases for “adding value” to student learning or for
absolute scores – often using state, school or district-developed assessments or through
the use of student learning objectives
Acknowledge individual teacher, team or school contribution
Bonuses or permanent salary increases for advanced certification, such as National Board
or for completing district or university sponsored “professional development units”
Some schemes acknowledge advanced degrees but minimize the payout for them
Bonuses for working in hard-to-staff schools or teaching a hard-to-staff subjects
Some bonuses have been tied to effectiveness; others have not been
Bonuses or permanent salary increases for movement on a career continuum, from
“novice” to “master” teacher or for taking on additional and important responsibilities
Bonuses or salary increases and movement on continuum may be tied to measures of
effectiveness, such as observations, student growth and student surveys
Bonuses or permanent salary increases tied to evaluation
As states adopt policies requiring a certain percentage of a teacher’s evaluation rating to be
tied to student growth, these bonuses or salary increases will become tied increasingly to
student performance on common or teacher-generated assessments
While nearly 200 districts have experimented with performance pay in Texas, the representative sampling of efforts to
implement the above components includes a handful of those both outside and within the Lone Star state.
3|P a g e
A Sampling of District-based 21st Century Compensation Reforms and Their Alignment with Emerging Practices
Denver
Public
Schools


Washington
D.C. Public
Schools





Baltimore
City Public
Schools




TAP




Austin ISD





A system of bonuses and permanent salary increases, ProComp eliminates the single salary scale, and a single
“index” amount negotiated by the district administration and the union drives the system. Agreed to by the
union in 2004 and modified in 2009, ProComp is voluntary for all teachers employed in the district before its
creation. It is mandatory for all teachers hired after December 2004.
Teachers receive bonuses and salary increases for completing professional development units, successfully
meeting the goals of one or two student learning objectives, achieving exceptional student growth as measured
by the state assessment, receiving a successful evaluation and responding to market incentives by teaching in
hard-to-staff schools and positions. It acknowledges the collective efforts of teachers by paying bonuses to
teachers in high growth and top performing schools.
ProComp is the most complex pay system in the country.
The Impactplus pay system divides teachers into two groups: 1) those whose value-added contribution to
student learning can be measured by the state assessment and 2) those whose contribution cannot be
measured by the state assessment.
The district pays bonuses to teachers who are rated on their evaluations as highly effective. Fifty percent of the
rating of the first group of teachers is determined by their value-added contribution and 75 percent of the
teachers’ ratings in the second group are determined by classroom observation.
Annual bonuses for highly effective teachers range from $3,000 to $25,000, depending on the category under
which the district evaluates them (1 or 2) and other factors, such as the free and reduced-price lunch rate of the
schools in which they teach.
The current version of Impact and Impactplus eliminates the past practice of including school-wide value- added
measures as part of a teacher’s evaluation.
Teachers can move horizontally and vertically on salary scale by demonstrating effectiveness.
In a scheme built around career pathways, the new Baltimore system establishes four points of a career:
standard teacher, professional teacher, model teacher and lead teacher.
Teachers move on the pathway by earning “achievement units” (AUs). Teachers earn AUs through their
evaluations which include measures of student growth (12 AUs for proficient and 9 AUs for satisfactory
evaluations; 3 AUs for a rating above unsatisfactory but below satisfactory) and participation in professional
development activities that contribute to student learning.
A grandfather clause in the contract allows eligible coursework in pursuit of certification and recertification to
count as one AU per college credit.
A comprehensive school reform model that includes elements of compensation reform, TAP incorporates
commitments to professional development, opportunities to collaborate with peers, fair and rigorous classroom
evaluations, and the potential to take on master and mentor teacher roles.
Districts implementing TAP provide additional compensation to teachers who take on new roles and
responsibilities such as mentoring and who improve student performance. It also encourages districts to pay
bonuses to teachers working in hard-to-staff schools and positions.
All teachers in TAP schools are eligible for financial awards based on the average scores they earn on multiple
evaluations of their classroom teaching as well as classroom – and school-level growth – using growth or valueadded measures.
TAP recommends that schools and districts allocate bonuses according to the following formula: 50 percent
teacher evaluations based on its teaching standards, 30 percent individual classroom achievement growth and
20 percent school-wide growth.
Participating schools set aside funds in a performance pay pool.
TAP operates in 45 Texas schools across 16 school districts.
An elaborate system of bonuses supplements the single salary schedule.
Teachers earn bonuses for moving to and staying in hard-to-staff schools and positions; meeting individual,
team and campus-wide student growth objectives as measured by student learning objectives and
superintendent-approved baskets of indicators including value-added measures; taking on new roles such as
mentoring; and completing professional development units.
Bonuses range from $500 to $3,000, with the highest bonuses reserved for campus-wide and retention awards.
4|P a g e
Houston ISD





The current version of Aspire adds individual and group awards on top of single salary schedule.
Potential individual awards are much higher than campus awards (up to $7,000 compared to up to $1,000).
All staff is eligible for two separate group awards: 1) Campus Progress Award based on EVAAS gains, 2) Campus
Achievement Award based on reading and math performance in elementary and middle schools and AP/IB
enrollment/achievement and dropout rates in high schools.
Individual awards, which are as high as $7,000, are awarded for core foundation teachers with significant
cumulative index gains or for special education and pre-k through 2nd grade teachers with top quartile growth
scores.
High performers in Campus Progress Award and Campus Achievement Award schools can receive as much as
$9,000 in additional compensation.
State Support for New Forms of Compensation and Texas as a Leader
States have supported the development of 21st century compensation systems in two ways: with funding streams
earmarked for performance pay and, though less so, with a supportive policy infrastructure. Texas has been a national
leader in promoting new and strategic forms of teacher compensation by giving school districts access to funding
streams to pay for it. At one point, in an effort to reward and retain top talent, Texas incentive pay programs were
bigger than the federally funded Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF). According to the 2007-2008 Salaries and Benefits in Texas
Public Schools Reportviii198 school districts in Texas reported having incentive pay plans in place. Not surprisingly, the
state has led efforts to move away traditional forms of teacher compensation. For instance, in 2005 Governor Rick Perry
authorized the Commissioner of Education to establish a performance-pay grant program for Texas public schools. This
initiative, the Governor’s Educator’s Excellence Grant program (GEEG), commenced in August of 2006. In addition, in
2006, the 79th Legislature, 3rd Special Session, passed House Bill 1, which, once signed into law, authorized two
additional performance-based pay programs for Texas educators, the Texas Educators Excellence Grant program (TEEG)
and the District Awards for Teaching Excellence (DATE).
GEEG directed funds toward 100 campuses with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students and which
the state cited for high achievement (rated exemplary or recognized by TEA) or showed significant improvement in the
areas of math and reading. With an appropriation of $198 million, TEEG targeted 2,241 campuses with high percentages
of economically disadvantaged students and with high achievement or significant improvement in the areas of math and
reading. DATE provided funding to school districts to develop either district-wide compensation systems or incentive
plans for select schools. In the first year of the program, 53 percent of districts designed plans to be implemented
district-wide. In year two, that number climbed to 64 percent. Arguably, the most successful of Texas’s grant programs,
DATE required that at least 60 percent of each award be used to award teachers who had a significant impact on student
growth, with the remaining used for stipends, principal incentive pay and certain components of the TAP program.
Other states offer incentive funds as well. Florida rewards schools that have sustained high student performance or
demonstrated substantial improvement in student performance. Schools receiving an “A” on the school report card (or
that improve at least one performance grade from the previous year) are eligible to earn an additional $70 per student,
which a school advisory council then decides to disburse in one-time staff bonuses, one-time expenditures for
educational equipment and materials or for the hiring of temporary personnel. Florida reports that the program has had
a positive effect on schools maintaining and improving grades. In 2011, 1146 schools maintained an “A,” 312 schools
improved to an “A,” and 187 schools improved to a grade other than an “A.”ix
5|P a g e
North Carolina supported performance pay for a three-year time period beginning in 2001. The state awarded an annual
bonus of $1,800 to certified math, science and special education teachers working in public middle and high schools
whose students met one of two criteria:
1. Eighty or more students had to be eligible for free or reduced price lunch; or
2. Fifty percent had to be eligible for free or reduced price lunch and the students had to perform below grade
level in both Algebra 1 and Biology, as measured by the state’s end-of course tests. The bonuses were not
performance based; they were designed entirely to promote retention of these teachers.
While states have promoted performance pay experiments by making funding available for bonuses, they have been less
aggressive about promoting policy infrastructure to advance pay reform. Indiana is an exception. It requires local salary
schedules to be based on a combination of factors, including classroom performance. Districts pay money out in
permanent salary increases, not bonuses. Indiana legislation also minimizes teacher experience and content-area
degrees, allowing them to account for no more than
1/3 of the salary calculation in school districts.
Recommendations to state lawmakers from the
There may also be room for Texas to consider its
policy framework for teacher pay. In 2008, the
Center for Education Policy at the Texas Public Policy
Foundation recommended a series of policy changes
to advance compensation reform in Texas. The
recommendations include the elimination of the
state’s minimum salary schedule (see box to the
right).x
A Sampling of Results, Including Those from Texas
Texas Public Policy Foundation
1. Eliminate the state minimum salary schedule which
rewards longevity over effectiveness in the classroom.
2. Refuse to tie local school districts hands by giving all
teachers in the state an across-the-board pay raise.
3. Continue to support and fund teacher incentive pay
programs.
4. Remove any roadblocks to reform at the state level
that hinder local school districts from having the
flexibility to design a compensation system that meets
their needs.
Compensation reform is an emerging field of
practice. Performance pay plans have been limited in
scope both in terms of the number of efforts whole districts have undertaken and the total amount of compensation
these pay schemes actually move outside the single salary schedule. While research on incentive pay has been mixed,
many early efforts to implement compensation reform operated under the false assumption that doing nothing more
than dangling a financial incentive without other support or strategies will “change teacher behavior,” “get teachers to
work harder,” and ultimately produce greater student achievement gains. In what was billed as the nation’ first scientific
study of performance pay, researchers from Vanderbilt recently made us aware of this misassumption. The study,
conducted by the National Center for Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt, monitored two control groups of
mathematics teachers in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Project leaders offered one group no incentive and the other
up to $15,000 to produce student achievement gains against above an historic achievement standard so teachers were
not competing with each other. Researchers generally found there was no difference between the achievement gains
produced by the control group that received no money and the treatment group that did. Researchers concluded that
incentive pay absent other supports does not produce increases in student achievement.xi
We have a lot more to learn than we actually know about strategic compensation reform. We also know very little
about how performance pay plans have had an impact on local labor markets, and a primary goal of performance pay is
to attract and retain great talent. Still, research is helping states and school districts get better and smarter about how
to align pay to state and district goals, including those around recruiting and retaining great teachers. While both
performance pay efforts and associated scientific research are limited, this brief can highlight some initial findings:
6|P a g e

While individual financial incentives alone may not improve the effectiveness of teachers, school wide-awards
by themselves appear to have limited impact on student achievement as well.xii

Financial incentives wrapped around a comprehensive array of human capital management reforms show
promise in positively affecting student achievement. The National Institute for Effectiveness in Teaching (NIET)
has commissioned a number of research studies that have found positive effects on teachers’ and schools’
value- added and student achievement gains in TAP schools. TAP schools in Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas
raised student achievement in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years by significantly more than the statistically
expected one-year growth standard for each state. In 2009, 53 percent of the TAP schools in these states
performed at least two standard errors higher than an average year of growth for their states.xiii
Denver Public Schools’ ProComp, another comprehensive approach, has achieved some success as well. Key
findings of a 2010 study showed that growth in mathematics and reading achievement increased substantially
from 2003-2009. The study also showed that ProComp has had a positive impact on retention and likely
recruitment, as schools with higher rates of ProComp participation enjoy higher rates of retention and teachers
hired after the implementation of ProComp yield high student achievement results than those hired prior to the
program.xiv

Texas has produced promising results as well. The Texas Public Policy Foundation reported in 2008 that
outcomes connected to Austin, Dallas, Houston and Lamesa School District’s compensation reforms include
“higher test scores, higher state accountability rankings, improved teacher morale, and lower teacher
turnover.”xv Another study by Vanderbilt University touts the success of the DATE program. During its first two
years, the authors of the study report, DATE schools produced higher student achievement and had fewer
teachers leave.xvi
Teacher Retention
Discussions about retention frequently focus on root causes of attrition: salary (both the size of average teacher salaries
and the lockstep approaches to paying teachers), working conditions (including the quality of building leadership and the
availability of quality mentoring and induction programs) and teacher preparation. Previous briefs prepared for the
Texas Teaching Commission have focused on mentoring and induction as well as preparation. Therefore, this brief
focuses attention on new ideas that have emerged to address attrition and the role that compensation plays as well.
Data about Attrition
At the request of the Education Commission of the States, the Rand Corporation reviewed empirical studies of teacher
recruitment and retention between 1980 and 2003 and reached several conclusions, including the following:xvii





Math and science teachers were more likely to leave the profession than teachers in other fields
Teachers with higher measured ability also were more likely to leave
High minority, high poverty and low performing schools had higher attrition rates
Compensation matters: high salaries contributed to lower attrition rates and teachers were responsive to
markets, responding to higher salaries outside their districts and in other professions
Working conditions matter as well: schools with lower rates of turnover offered mentoring and induction
programs, provided teachers with greater autonomy and support and gave teachers discretion in setting
discipline policies
7|P a g e
In sum, Rand researchers conclude, “The entry, mobility, and attrition patterns . . . indicate that teachers exhibit
preferences for higher salaries, better working conditions and greater intrinsic rewards and will tend to move to other
teaching positions or jobs or activities outside of teaching that offer these characteristics.”xviii As a result of these studies,
retention efforts have
The New Teacher Center Teaching and Learning Condition Initiative
tended to focus on
improving the quality of
“New Teacher Center's Teaching and Learning Conditions Initiative is rooted in the Teaching
mentoring and induction
& Learning Conditions Survey, a statewide, online, validated survey of school-based
for all teachers, especially
educators that assesses teaching conditions throughout an education system and provides
those in their first years of
school-by-school information on educator perceptions of whether critical conditions are
service. States have also
present. Working with a state’s education leaders, New Teacher Center builds a coalition of
most recently turned their
stakeholders, policymakers and practitioners to support and communicate the importance
attention toward working
of the survey, to encourage participation and use of survey results to inform school, district
conditions. For instance,
and state policies.”
the New Teacher Center
launched its Teaching and
Learning Conditions
Initiativexix that ties working condition survey results to student achievement. Ten states have participated to date in the
initiative, including Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
From Retention for All to Retaining the Very Best
In August of 2012, TNTP released The Irreplaceablesxx, a report based on its study of 90,000 teachers in four large urban
school districts. The report suggests that the national dialogue around and consternation over the large number of
teachers who depart from schools each year misses the point. Instead, we should focus on retaining the right teachers,
the very best who constitute by its estimate about 20% of the workforce. In this new report, the authors endeavor to
expose:
“The real retention crisis through the experiences of a group we call the “Irreplaceables”: teachers who are so
successful that they are nearly impossible to replace. Teachers of this caliber provide more engaging learning
experiences for students and help them achieve five to six more months of learning each year than students of
low-performing teachers—academic results that can be life-changing. . . . When one of them leaves a lowachieving school, it can take 11 hires to find just one teacher of comparable quality. These are the
teachers our urban schools desperately needs.”
According to TNTP, though they outperform all other categories of teachers (categories on a performance continuum),
Irreplaceables leave schools at the same rate that all others do, including the least effective. The researchers point out
that one in ten teachers nationally is an experienced but low performing teacher. These teachers rarely improve; even
after three years of support, first-year teachers typically outperform them. TNTP argues that the resources we currently
expend trying to improve and retain these low performers should instead be focused on retaining the highest
performing teachers. Irreplacebles leave for three primary reasons, which, the authors of the report suggest, can be
addressed through the application of strategies and policies that are applicable at both state and local levels.xxi
8|P a g e
Why Irreplacebles Leave
Principals make too little effort to retain Irreplaceables or
remove low performers.
Poor school cultures and working conditions drive away good
teachers. TNTP considers strong cultures to be those in which
there is respect and trust and a low tolerance for ineffective
teaching. It reports that attrition is much higher in schools with
“weak instructional cultures.”
What can be done about it
“Make retention of Irreplacables a top priority
 Set a goal of retaining more than 90 percent of
Irreplaceables annually, and report progress towards
that goal publicly
 Overhaul principal hiring, support and evaluation to
focus on instructional leadership abilities that result in
smart teacher retention, like the ability and
commitment to give teachers frequent, high-quality and
rigorous feedback
 Monitor school working conditions and address
concerns at the policy and individual school level that
drive away Irreplaceables
 Pay Irreplaceables what they’re worth and create
career pathways that extend their reach
 Protect Irreplaceables during layoffs”
Policies give principals and district leaders few incentives to
change their ways. The single salary schedule prevents leaders
from offering teachers differentiated pay, for instance. TNTP
reports that 55 percent of Irreplaceables earn lower base
salaries than the average ineffective teacher and only 20% of
principals state that their district has conscious retention
strategies.
“Strengthen the profession through higher expectations
 Set a new baseline standard for effectiveness:
Teachers who cannot teach as well as the average firstyear teacher should be considered ineffective and
dismissed or counseled out (unless they are first-year
teachers)
 Encourage low performers to leave voluntarily by
creating alternatives to formal dismissal
 Remove the policy barriers to higher expectations,
such as forced-placement staffing rules and onerous
dismissal processes”
Finally, Irreplaceables report that they are more apt to stay in teaching if schools employ two of eight strategies to keep
them, one of which is simply telling them that they are high performing. However, important to the discussion about
retention is that these teachers report that they would stay if they had opportunities for leadership and could be put in
charge of something. Public Impact, a national nonprofit in the early stages of working with two school districts in
Tennessee and North Carolina take this desire to heart in their design of a program that aims to retain the top 25
percent of teachers and extend their reach to a greater majority of their studentsxxii.
A New Idea: Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture, Reach Extension and Teacher Retention
The nonprofit Public Impact is piloting an effort to extend the reach of top teachers by creating career
pathways. These pathways can include opportunities to lead multiple classrooms and to be expert instructors
of a subject, reading, for instance, and teach multiple classrooms of students that single subject. Public Impact
aims to “extend the reach of our top teachers . . . who produce well over a year of learning progress in their
students – and provide them with career advancement opportunities that don’t require leaving the
classroom.”
9|P a g e
Assessing Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
Horizontal alignment refers to the degree to which one element of the human capital continuum aligns with other
elements of the continuum. Vertical alignment refers to the degree to which each element of the human capital
continuum aligns to the instructional goals and defined teacher performance competencies of the district and/or state.
HORIZONTAL ALIGNMENT
Are preparation program graduates tracked to allow follow up with
leadership development opportunities?
VERTICAL ALIGNMENT
Is there vertical alignment?
Limited alignment
PREPARATION
TEA reports leaders annually complete surveys comparing the
effectiveness of alternatively certified teachers (specific to individual
programs) to traditionally certified teachers; research in Texas also
supports the rigor of induction programs offered to alternatively
certified teachers.
Are recruitment incentives targeted to encourage long-term retention
in shortage areas, informed by retention data?
Alternative certified educators are
tracked only in initial years as
evidenced by the data.
Is there vertical alignment?
Limited alignment
RECRUITMENT
Recruitment incentives efforts appear to be short-term in many Texas
districts. In some cases, educators are asked to commit to one to three
years of service in a high-needs school. Funding has been a persistent
issue with supporting recruitment incentives; districts are able to
secure initial funding, but sustainability becomes a concern.
Are new teachers given appropriate placements and support
systems?
Recruitment strategies vary districtto-district and wealthier districts fare
better than poorer districts.
Is there vertical alignment?
Limited alignment
HIRING AND
INDUCTION
Although efforts are being made to increase teacher-to-school fit, this
issue is complicated by the fact that districts have lots of autonomy
when it comes to hiring strategies and the implementation of induction
programs. Cross-comparison of districts provides limited information. If
Texas is to conform to nationally recognized best practices on a
statewide basis, it will need to offer more structured guidance to
districts regarding hiring strategies and induction policies.
Are evaluations used to identify strengths to provide differentiated
roles and responsibilities?
The state offers recommendations for
appropriate placements and supports,
but perhaps more structured
guidance would lead to better teacher
expectations.
Is there vertical alignment?
Limited alignment
DEVELOPMENT
AND
EVALUATION
The more rigorous incentive pay programs utilize evaluations to modify
and adapt programs based on data. However, Texas could benefit from
requiring external evaluators (with no stake in the program) to perform
evaluations.
State funded programs often require
formative and summative reports;
however, if these data were more
easily accessible perhaps districts
could learn more from the successes
and challenges of neighboring
districts.
10 | P a g e
Summary of Horizontal and Vertical Alignment between
Rewards and Retention and the following:
Goals
• Limited Alignment
Recruitment
• Limited Alignment
Hiring and
Induction
• Limited Alignment
Development and • Limited Alignment
Evaluation
Rewards and
Retention
Practices
Teacher Goals and
Expectations
Preparation
Hard Questions
Texas has been a national leader in school reform. It has demonstrated that leadership in the realm of incentive pay,
fostering nearly 200 district-based performance pay efforts. As Texas contemplates a next generation of work designed
to increase teacher effectiveness, it may want to discuss a series of questions, which if answered, could advance its
efforts to retain and compensate top talent.
Compensation/Rewards
Should Texas consider revising state statute to eliminate the
minimum salary so that districts can better respond to market
forces? Why or why not?
Should Texas revive state funding for performance pay? Why or
why not?
Should Texas develop statute that requires districts to adopt
forms of performance pay or to align their pay and evaluation
systems? Why or why not?
Should Texas or its partners disaggregate salary data by subject
area for elementary and secondary teachers to determine how
salaries compare across disciplines and grade levels? If so, how
should the state use that information?
Retention
Should Texas focus on retaining all teachers or the top 20-25
percent? If the latter is preferred, does the infrastructure exist to
identify those teachers?
Should Texas consider adopting a policy requiring all districts to
identify the top 20-25 percent of its performers and report their
retention rate to the public? Should Texas set as a goal retaining
90% of all top teachers?
Should Texas have policies protecting top performers from
layoffs?
Should Texas put greater emphasis on the connection between
working conditions, retention and student achievement and
consider administering its own working condition survey or
collaborating with the New Teacher Center or another provider?
Why or why not?
What can Texas or its partners do to educate school districts
about the various methods of incentive pay so they understand
their options?
11 | P a g e
Endnotes
i
Midland Independent School District, 2012 - 2013 SALARY PLACEMENT FOR TEACHERS (2012), accessed September 2, 2012,
http://midlandisd.net/cms/lib01/TX01000898/Centricity/Domain/50/2012-13%20TEACHER%20SALARY%20SCHEDULE.pdf. Please
note- to save space, we have only included the first 16 steps in the graphic.
ii
National Council of Teacher Quality, Restructuring Teacher Pay to Reward Excellence (2010), accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.nctq.org/tr3/docs/nctq_salary_combo.pdf.
iii
Steven Rivkin and Eric A. Hanushek, “How to improve the supply of high quality teachers,” in Brookings Papers on Educational
Policy, ed. Diane Ravitch (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).
iv
Marguerite Roza and Raegen Miller, Separation of Degrees: State-by-State Analysis of Teacher Compensation for Master’s Degrees
(Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2009), 3, accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2009/07/20/6351/separation-of-degrees/.
v
National Council of Teacher Quality, Restructuring Teacher Pay to Reward Excellence (2010), 6, accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.nctq.org/tr3/docs/nctq_salary_combo.pdf.
vi
Ibid.
vii
Jim Simpkins et al., Washington State High Schools Pay Less for Math and Science Teachers than for Teachers of Other Subjects
(Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2010), 6, accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.crpe.org/publications/washington-state-high-schools-pay-less-math-and-science-teachers-teachers-other.
viii
Texas Association of School Boards and Texas Association of School Administrators, “Salaries and Benefits in Texas Public Schools
2007-2008.”
ix
K-12 Outcome-Focused Funding in Other States, Report to Oregon Education Investment Board by Todd Jones. (2011).
x
Brooke Dollens Terry, Paying for Results: Examining Incentive Pay in Texas Schools (Austin, TX: Texas Public Policy Foundation,
2008), 26-27, accessed September 4, 2012, http://www.texaspolicy.com/center/education-policy/reports/paying-results.
xi
Matthew G. Springer et al., Teacher Pay for Performance: Experimental Evidence from the Project on Incentives in Teaching
(Nashville: National Center on Performance Incentives, 2010), accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.ksde.org%2FLinkClick.aspx%3Ffileticket%3DTiVh1dwM7fk%253D%26tabid%3D1646%26mid%3D10218&ei=jU1GUNnjBad6AG7l4CQAw&usg=AFQjCNEU1AO5wQYAGXo0MQIakZ5zgdS_Jg.
xii
Roland G. Fryer, Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools Working Paper No.
16850 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011).
xiii
National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, TAP Research Summary (Updated April 2012), accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.tapsystem.org/publications/tap_research_summary_0210.pdf.
xiv
Edward W. Wiley et al., Denver ProComp: An Outcomes Evaluation of Denver’s Alternative Teacher Compensation System
(Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder, 2010), accessed September 4, 2012,
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://static.dpsk12.org/gems/newprocomp/ProCompOutcomesEvaluationApril2010final.pdf&sa=U
&ei=mDJGUL2vLYrbqQH9mIHoDA&ved=0CAkQFjAC&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNELjWqk3dolDU4lrY3C2MaB2iSJKw.
xv
Brooke Dollens Terry, Paying for Results: Examining Incentive Pay in Texas Schools (Austin, TX: Texas Public Policy Foundation,
2008), 26-27, accessed September 4, 2012, http://www.texaspolicy.com/center/education-policy/reports/paying-results.
xvi
Research News @ Vanderbilt, “Texas program sees gains in student achievement, teacher retention,” Vanderbilt University,
accessed September 2, 2012, http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2010/12/texas-state-funded-incentive-pay-program-shows-improvedstudent-achievement-decreased-teacher-turnover/.
xvii
Cassandra M. Guarino et al., A Review of the Research Literature on Teacher Recruitment and Retention (Santa Monica, CA: Rand
Corporation, 2004), accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR164.pdf.
xviii
Cassandra M. Guarino et al., A Review of the Research Literature on Teacher Recruitment and Retention (Santa Monica, CA: Rand
Corporation, 2004), 10, accessed September 4, 2012,
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR164.pdf.
xix
New Teacher Center, “Teaching and Learning Condition Initiative,” accessed September 2, 2012,
http://www.newteachercenter.org/services/teaching-learning-conditions-initiative.
xx
The New Teacher Project, The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America’s Urban Schools (2012), accessed
September 4, 2012, http://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_Irreplaceables_2012.pdf.
12 | P a g e
xxi
The New Teacher Project, The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America’s Urban Schools (2012): 18-34,
accessed September 4, 2012, http://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_Irreplaceables_2012.pdf.
xxii
Opportunity Culture, “Our Initiative,” Public Impact, accessed September 2, 2012, http://opportunityculture.org/our-initiative/.
13 | P a g e