Search

Salaries are one of the most powerful policy levers states and school districts can use to attract qualified, effective, and diverse teachers. What role do states play in supporting strategic use of salaries? This report examines the state teacher compensation policies that influence districts' potential strategic use of teacher pay. It analyzes three types of state policies that aim to attain three purposes: (1) Differentiated pay: To attract teachers to traditionally hard-to-staff subjects or schools; (2) Performance pay: To reward high-performing teachers; and (3) Pay for prior work: To compensate teacher candidates for prior experience relevant to teaching. With the influx of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, some states have designed new or expanded already existing initiatives aimed to attract or retain teachers to hard-to-staff positions. The analysis in this report includes these state strategies, while acknowledging that they might only remain in place temporarily while ESSER funds remain available. [For the the second report in this three-part series, "State of the States 2021: Teacher Preparation Policy," see ED611532.]

When public schools closed their doors in the spring of 2020, an estimated 3 million students went missing from formal schooling of any sort. During the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, a mixture of public confusion and mistrust of guidelines coming from state and federal authorities led to a churn of reopening and reclosing schools. However, the tides changed within the first 100 days of the Biden Administration when the U.S. Department of Education created a clear pathway for reopening schools and re-engaging students. Compared to summer 2020, districts are now well positioned to implement robust summer learning and enrichment programs this year. This report proposes the following six principles for summer learning that synthesize research on the topic with field-based practices related to COVID-19 recovery and planning: (1) Tie summer plans to long-term recovery goals; (2) Make the most of limited summer learning time; (3) Center attendance strategies in relationships and responsiveness; (4) Leverage community expertise to expand learning and enrichment options; (5) Create new pathways to recruit, train, and pay high-quality educators; and (6) Ensure that students and families have support networks for critical social services. [This report was co-produced by COVID Collaborative.]

The Teacher Compensation Survey (TCS) was a research and development effort by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to explore the possibility of developing an administrative records survey that would compile compensation and demographic data on all public school teachers in the nation. A pilot survey in 2007 collected data from seven states for school year (SY) 2005-06. The number of participating states increased in subsequent years, and by 2012, data were collected from 24 states for the 2010-11 school year. TCS was discontinued after the 2010-11 collection due to budget constraints. This report summarizes the results of the data collected for the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. Limited resources prevented a more timely release of these data. While the data may be old, this report is being issued now because TCS afforded valuable lessons that are applicable to any similar, future collection efforts by NCES or by others seeking to gain a better understanding of issues related to teacher compensation. The purpose of this report is to describe both the potential of the collection and the practical problems encountered in the hopes that this will inform future survey efforts. In addition to any analytical value it may have, the TCS effort provides valuable lessons in collecting teacher compensation data. The analysis in section 3 looks closely at the problems encountered over three years of collecting TCS data and suggests ways these could be addressed.

There is broad consensus that high-quality environments for young children depend on teachers who are skilled at nurturing their development and learning, yet low pay and inadequate working conditions routinely hamper teachers in their efforts to apply their skills and knowledge. This condition exists among teachers in early education as well as K-12 classrooms, fueling the ubiquitous challenge of recruiting and retaining a skilled teaching workforce across the age spectrum. K-12 teachers nationwide are now calling attention to how inadequate pay and poor working conditions are driving economic insecurity and turnover and how insufficient classroom resources continue to hobble their practice, leading to large-scale demonstrations for increased public investment in education. With teachers increasingly engaging in the public sphere and a growing number of elected officials prioritizing support for schools and teaching staff, the demand for change to the systems that prepare, support, and compensate educators continues to build. This study captures early educators' perspectives about their work environments in Florida's Miami-Dade County and examines how these environments impact teaching staff practice and well-being. In order to teach to the best of their ability, educators require work environments that support their ongoing learning, emphasize time without child responsibilities for professional activities, and offer dependable benefits that ensure their well-being. With prioritization of workforce supports, quality improvement initiatives can make substantive progress towards a system that is equitable, efficient, and effective for children, their families, and educators alike.

This special report provides context and examples of new legislation impacting preparation, certification, induction, professional development, evaluation and compensation for leaders of schools and districts.

Black and Latinx educators make up a critical portion of the early child education (ECE) field; 31% of the center-based workforce and about half of those employed in Head Start. These diverse educators are from communities where the impacts of the pandemic have been the most detrimental -- according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, Latinos and African-Americans in the United States have been three times as likely to become infected with COVID-19 as their White neighbors, and nearly twice as likely to die from the virus. Research shows that early childhood is a critical time for brain development and stable connections with caregivers are extremely important. For those families who have provided care and education at home, the disruption in ECE will impact their children's development and learning. The effect of trauma and social isolation for countless children during this time heightens the need to support a diverse and well-qualified ECE workforce. The following brief contains joint policy recommendations developed and disseminated by NBCDI and UnidosUS, based on recent qualitative research efforts. In 2018, UnidosUS conducted 10 focus groups with ECE teachers among their Affiliate organizations operating preschool programs. The focus groups involved 94 participants from state pre-K and federally funded ECE programs in Los Angeles, CA; Stockton, CA (two groups); Sunnyside, WA; Red Granite, WI; Philadelphia, PA; Raleigh, NC; Avon Park, FL; Kansas City, MO; and Nashville, TN. In 2018 and 2019, NBCDI engaged with Black educators in eight focus groups and community and stakeholder engagement meetings in Chicago, IL; Houston, TX; Augusta, GA; Washington, DC; Omaha, NE; Grand Rapids, MI; New York City, NY; and Compton, CA.

William Taylor, 29, a third generation Washington, D.C. resident stands out for a number of reasons. For one, he is an African American man who taught math at an elementary school for many years. Taylor excelled in the role, so much so that he now coaches his fellow math teachers at Aiton Elementary School, which is located in a high-poverty Washington D.C. neighborhood. He has also been profiled in the national news--specifically in "The Atlantic"--where it was noted that, in a typical school year, 60 percent of Taylor's students start their first day in his class doing math below grade level, but by the end of the year, 90 percent of his students are performing above grade level. For his exemplary work Taylor earned $131,000 in 2013--another factor that makes him stand out as a public school teacher. In 2013, after seven straight years of extraordinary performance reviews Taylor received a base salary of $96,000, a $25,000 bonus for being a highly effective teacher in a high-poverty school, and a $10,000 award for outstanding teaching and dedication to his work. With the money he's saved since he started teaching, Taylor recently bought a house in Washington, a city that annually ranks as one of the most-expensive cities in America. He also purchased his dream car: a black Chevrolet Camaro. Taylor's financial success was made possible by the District of Columbia Public Schools', or DCPS, revamped teacher compensation system known as IMPACTplus. Introduced in 2009, IMPACTplus redesigned the step-and-lane pay scale--which rewarded teachers solely for years of experience and degree attainment--to include measures of performance and school leadership. Before the implementation of IMPACTplus, Taylor earned $42,000 a year as a teacher and gave serious consideration to changing to a more lucrative profession. "The [increased] compensation has made me more inclined to stay in education," Taylor says now. "It also makes me more inclined to be a teacher in DCPS because if I go to other districts, I'm not making that type of money." Through IMPACTplus, teachers like Taylor who earn highly effective ratings on IMPACT--the DCPS teacher evaluation system that evaluates teacher performance through multiple measures, including student performance and observation of practice--receive substantial raises to their base salaries in addition to annual bonuses. Early data from DCPS show this strategy of financially rewarding high-performing teachers more may be starting to pay dividends. A recent study found that DCPS has retained 92 percent of its highly effective teachers and 86 percent of its effective teachers between the 2010 and 2012 school years. By contrast, only 59 percent of the district's minimally effective teachers are still in DCPS during the same time period. In addition, another recent report found that while compensation was one of the top three reasons cited by high-performing teachers for leaving the classroom in other districts, in DCPS, high-performing teachers who left the district ranked compensation at the bottom of the list--20th out of 20 reasons--for ceasing to teach. Furthermore, over the last several years, the number of DCPS applicants for teaching positions rose by 45 percent. "We have effectively eliminated compensation as a reason our top teachers leave--and we're increasingly seeing great teachers coming to DCPS because they want to teach in a district where they can be paid what they deserve," said Scott Thompson, DCPS's deputy chief of human capital for teacher effectiveness. DCPS is not the only district that has overhauled its compensation system with the aim of paying effective educators substantially more than they earned in years prior, yet it is still an unusual practice. In nearly 90 percent of districts across the nation, teachers are not recognized for their effectiveness through increased compensation. This report reveals the key policy decisions undertaken by 10 districts that have made it possible to revamp their compensation systems and, at the same time, both keep their systems solvent and achieve district goals. While the specific goals of each district vary, all 10 districts used compensation to attract, retain, and leverage high-performing teachers. The 10 districts presented in this report have been among the first in the nation to redesign their teacher compensation systems. These so-called first-mover districts include: Baltimore City, Maryland; Denver, Colorado; Douglas County, Colorado; Harrison School District 2, Colorado; Hillsborough County, Florida; Lawrence, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Putnam County, Tennessee; and Washington, D.C. First-mover districts vary in location, size, governance structure, and student academic performance, proving that diverse districts throughout the country can find ways to reform teacher compensation systems regardless of context. The first-mover districts considered the following key components during the teacher compensation redesign process. Not all districts altered each component of the process, but each considered the following elements as part of their comprehensive approach to redesign compensation: (1) Base salary: The set pay teachers receive from the district, which accounts for 90 percent to 95 percent of teacher pay before benefits; (2) Teacher effectiveness: The measure from teacher evaluation systems used instead of--or in addition to--years of experience and advanced degree attainment; (3) Speed of salary growth: The number of years it takes for teachers to reach the highest salary level in a school district; (4) Career pathway opportunities: The avenues available to teachers to earn additional compensation by taking on increased roles and responsibility within their school buildings and/or districts; (5) Incentives for hard-to-staff schools and positions: The additional compensation given to teachers for teaching hard-to-staff subjects and/or teaching in a high-needs school; (6) Bonuses, rewards, and recognition: The one-time bonuses, rewards and/or recognition offered to individual teachers, groups of teachers, or school-wide for student-achievement gains; and (7) Opt-in timeframe: The amount of time teachers are given to enter the new teacher compensation system. While each of the 10 districts examined faced different constraints and made different choices in redesigning their compensation systems, the following best practices for districts emerged from the authors' analysis: (1) Differentiate compensation based on roles and responsibilities. Implementing differentiated career pathways gives districts the opportunity to increase pay for effective, expert teachers who take on both additional or different roles and responsibility. When designing differentiated compensation structures, districts should provide rewards that are commensurate with job responsibility; (2) Set starting salaries to meet market demand. When setting starting salaries, districts need to be aware of their competition from neighboring districts. Districts should set starting salaries that are substantial enough to attract high-potential teachers, but not so high that they compromise the district's ability to appropriately reward and retain experienced teachers who prove themselves effective; (3) Align teacher compensation redesign with fair and proven teacher evaluation systems. Teacher compensation systems should be aligned with fair and proven teacher evaluation systems that include multiple measures and reliably distinguish among levels of teacher effectiveness. Districts should refine their teacher evaluation systems until teachers and principals have confidence in these new systems before tying them to compensation; (4) Shift pay away from years of experience and advance degree attainment. Districts should consider moving away from primarily rewarding additional educational attainment and years of experience and toward salary raises based substantially on effectiveness, roles, and responsibilities; (5) Use compensation incentives to attract highly effective teachers to hard-to-staff schools, districts, and subjects. Districts should use compensation to attract highly effective teachers to hard-to-staff schools and positions. The number of teachers needed to fill the positions in each school will differ based on context; (6) Emphasize extra pay for effectiveness and career pathways instead of small bonuses. Districts should prioritize increases in base salaries based upon a teacher's effectiveness or for taking on increased or different roles and responsibilities. Increases in base salaries signal to teachers that the district values them and encourages them to think differently about their long-term career trajectory; (7) Accelerate the timeline to earning the maximum salary where possible. To expand the effect of redesigned compensation systems, districts should minimize the number of years it takes to reach the maximum teacher salary. However, because this policy change may affect many early career teachers, districts should set a high bar for the rigorous differentiation of teachers in order for the redesigned system to remain financially sustainable; and (8) Allow teachers to opt-in to new compensation systems within a set timeframe. If the new compensation system reduces the pay of some teachers, districts should allow current teachers to opt-in to the redesigned compensation systems rather than forcing all teachers to switch to a the new system. This opt-in option should be limited to a set period of time following the transition to a new compensation system in order to make the fiscal effect more predictable and sustainable. The purpose of teacher compensation reform is to improve school districts' ability to attract, retain, and leverage a high-performing teaching force that aligns with a district's student-performance objectives and overall priorities. Ideally, districts will be able to adjust current budgets in order to achieve this goal. The resulting compensation system should be one where the majority of teachers are earning equal or higher salaries than they were prior to the reform.

Some Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grantees are experimenting with the design and operation of teacher leader (TL) programs as part of their performance-based compensation systems (PBCS). Much of the impetus for this is the U.S Department of Education TIF 4 requirement that grantees' PBCS should provide for "additional responsibilities and leadership roles," along with other TIF 4 system requirements for PBCS. In addition, districts now view TL programs as a way to provide professional development and advancement opportunities to educators, as well as to leverage the knowledge and experience of their most successful educators. This paper examines four TIF grantees who have developed and implemented TL programs. The paper provides guidelines and recommendations establishing a staffing plan for TL programs including: (a) a description of the TL tasks, duties, and compensation, (b) a process for recruiting and selecting the desired number of TLs, (c) a procedure for making job offers, and (d) onboarding methods that will provide training and mentoring support to newly hired TLs. This information will assist educators and stakeholders with designing staffing plans for TL programs. Additional information about teacher leader programs and standards generally, as well as specific state programs, is available in the appendix.

Nobody goes into teaching to get rich, but that's no excuse not to pay teachers as professionals. Compensation is one of the most important factors in determining who enters the teaching profession and how long they stay--yet 90 percent of all U.S. school districts pay teachers without any regard for their actual performance with students, shortchanging our best educators. If we seriously believe in the value of great teaching, we have to not only pay teachers more but also pay them "differently." "Shortchanged" examines why lockstep pay undermines the value of great teaching and hurts students and teachers, making it difficult to recruit and keep top talent, and discouraging high performers from teaching where they're needed most. It's time to build smarter compensation systems that actually pay for what really matters: how hard teachers' jobs are and how well they're doing them. Schools and districts can--and should--free up existing funds and pay teachers according to three principles: (1) Raise early-career salaries, to compete with other professions for top talent. It's especially important to make sure that effective teachers can move quickly up the pay scale in the first five years on the job; (2) Offer raises for strong classroom performance, to encourage high performers to stay; and (3) Create incentives for great teachers in high-need schools, to get the best possible teachers in the schools with the greatest challenges. Smarter teacher compensation isn't just hypothetical. It's possible to build compensation systems that value great teaching without an influx of new funding, and more than 25 districts, states and charter networks across the country are proving it.

Teachers have the greatest school-based effect on the achievement of any child in their classrooms, but highly effective principals can positively affect the achievement of every student in their schools. The difference between a highly effective principal and an average one is equal to two-to-seven months of extra learning per year for each child in the school. The effect is greatest in high-poverty schools. This confirms the conclusions drawn from case studies of schools where student achievement "beats the odds": no low-achieving school has been turned around without a dynamic and effective principal. For better or for worse, school leaders shape the learning environment for teachers and students. Effective school leaders inspire their staff to improve and create conditions that enable high student achievement. Reforms to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, and compensation will be less successful if attention is not paid to building and improving school leadership. The role of principals has evolved, and policy needs to ensure they are prepared and supported to meet the challenges schools face today. This issue of re:VISION, part 5 of a special series on teacher effectiveness, examines the qualities of successful principals and offers considerations for policymakers who are working to improve their preparation and effectiveness. [For Part 1 of this series, see ED559386; for Part 2, see ED559387; for Part 3, see ED559381; and for Part 4, see ED559388.]

Policymakers know that improving teaching in our schools requires a systemic look at many policies related to educator effectiveness. For example, teacher preparation programs need to be dramatically improved and strengthened, but without accompanying reform in compensation, even highly effective and innovative schools of education are unlikely to continue attracting top students who have more lucrative post-degree options. Likewise, to carry out compensation reform successfully, states need thoughtful, fair systems for measuring teacher performance. This issue of re:VISION, part of a special series on teacher effectiveness, examines the role of educator compensation through this lens and offers considerations for policymakers who are examining teacher compensation in their states. [For Part 1 of this series, see ED559385; for Part 2, see ED559387; for Part 4, see ED559388; and for Part 5, see ED559391.]

Part-time faculty teach approximately 58% of U.S. community college classes and thus manage learning experiences for more than half (53%) of students enrolled in community colleges (JBL Associates, 2008). Often referred to as "contingent faculty," their work is conditional; the college typically has no obligation to them beyond the current academic term. At many colleges, the use of contingent faculty began with hiring career professionals who brought real-world experience into the classroom. Historically, colleges also have hired contingent faculty when enrollment spiked, the college needed to acquire a particular type of expertise, or full-time faculty members were not available to teach a particular course. Increasingly, however, contingent faculty have become a fundamental feature of the economic model that sustains community college education. Because they typically have lower pay levels than full-time faculty and receive minimal, if any, benefits, part-time faculty are institutions' least expensive way to deliver instruction. As public funding, as a percentage of college costs, has steadily declined--and as colleges have been forced to find ways to contain costs so they can sustain college access--the proportion of part-time faculty has grown at colleges across the country. Today part-time faculty far outnumber full-time faculty at most colleges. For the past three years, the Center for Community College Student Engagement has listened systematically to part-time faculty and their full-time colleagues, including faculty, staff, and administrators. This report, which draws in part on 32 focus groups with these individuals, aims to help colleges improve engagement with part-time faculty so more students have access to the experiences that will lead to success. [For the Methodology Supplement, see ED561120.]

One of the most important things school systems can do to promote student achievement is to ensure that all students have effective teachers. Effective teachers may be particularly important for the most disadvantaged students. The U.S. Department of Education commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to create this report as a resource for state and district policymakers who are working to ensure that all students, regardless of background, have effective teachers. This report is intended to illustrate the steps districts take and the challenges they face in assessing teacher effectiveness as a precursor to providing effective teachers for all students. In so doing, the report focuses on three areas of state and district policy that play a mutually reinforcing role in promoting equitable access to effective teachers: (1) Identifying effective teachers; (2) Using information about teacher effectiveness in human resource policies; and (3) Using information about teachers' effectiveness in efforts to ensure equity. This report draws on the experiences of five districts to provide examples that may be relevant to state and district policymakers considering action in these three areas. The five districts are: (1) Columbus City Schools (Ohio); (2) Eagle County Schools (Colorado); (3) Hamilton County Public Schools (Tennessee); (4) Hillsborough County Public Schools (Florida); and (5) Houston Independent School District (Texas). The report addresses three questions: (1) How did the districts identify effective teachers and what were some of the challenges associated with the measures that the districts used?; (2) How did the districts use information about teachers' effectiveness in human resource policies?; and (3) How did the districts use information about teachers' effectiveness in their efforts to make the distribution of effective teachers more equitable? By summer 2010, all five districts had begun to measure teacher effectiveness through student achievement growth in at least some schools and most were implementing new classroom observations of teachers' practice. By summer 2010, the five districts had used those measures in human resource policies in a variety of ways, and some had other policies in place for promoting equitable access to effective teachers. AIR staff visited each district in June and July of 2010 to learn about their specific approaches to teacher effectiveness, including the way the districts selected those approaches and resolved key dilemmas and challenges. This report highlights examples of the way study districts identified effective teachers, and draws on that information for human resource policies and efforts to ensure equity. Because most of the practices discussed in this report are relatively new and will likely be refined over time, monitoring and evaluation will allow districts and states to determine whether their actions are successful and to adjust their practices accordingly.

Hillsborough County Public Schools has launched a teacher evaluation system that has attracted attention from educators and policy makers across the country. Centralized, collaborative, communications-driven and adaptable are key characteristics of Hillsborough's approach. The system consists of two main components: observation of instruction and teachers' value-added scores, based on student test results. Appended are: (1) Danielson Domains; (2) Grants Management Team Organization Chart; (3) Summaries of Observations; (4) Five-Star Report; (5) Teacher Evaluation Score Report; and (6) Distribution of Scores.

Governors and other state leaders have shown an increasing interest in creating new models of teacher compensation that would reward educators based on their contributions to student learning. To support this interest, the National Governors Association (NGA) hosted a policy academy focusing on that issue. The policy academy provided teams with assistance and advice from NGA Center staff, access to other experts and an opportunity to network with other states confronting similar issues and challenges. During the academy, state leadership teams recognized some common challenges, allowing them to learn from each other, share best practices and commit to some common principles that could guide their efforts. This paper looks at those discussions. (Contains 28 endnotes.)

Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement system supports for professional development and on rating rubrics related to staff formal education, compensation and benefits, and adult work environments in center-based programs. Here, they examine the extent to which these key ingredients for program improvement are included within and vary across quality rating and improvement systems. They anticipated that staff qualifications and professional development, as they have largely been the focus of improvement efforts in the early care and education field, would be consistently included in systems. As QRISs are becoming the primary strategy for quality improvement, they were also interested to learn the extent to which QRISs attend to the other key ingredients--compensation and factors related to work settings--that have been linked to quality. This investigation describes the variety of ways in which different QRISs identify and define these key elements associated with supporting staff, both as individuals and as a group, to improve and sustain quality. The authors used the Child Trends "Compendium of Quality Rating Systems and Evaluations" as their major source of information of QRISs. To gain additional insight into how systems are operationalized, they conducted interviews during spring and summer 2010 with key stakeholders from four jurisdictions with varying QRISs characteristics, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia (D.C.). To clarify particular elements of some QRISs, they also reviewed individual QRIS websites and corresponded with administering agency directors. Four components of QRISs as described in system plans constitute the focus of this investigation: 1) Staff qualifications; 2) Financial incentives for professional development; 3) Direct compensation, including salary and benefits; and 4) Adult learning environments. Appendix includes: Quality Rating and Improvement Systems by Resources and Indicators of Support for Professional Development, Direct Compensation, and Supportive Adult Learning Environments. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure, 4 boxes and 80 endnotes.)

One of the competitive priorities of the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top applications addressed science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). States that applied were required to submit plans that addressed rigorous courses of study, cooperative partnerships to prepare and assist teachers in STEM content, and prepare more students, particularly underrepresented groups, for STEM study and careers. This analysis summarizes the proposed STEM activities in twelve awarded Race to the Top applications. The summary is organized into the following sub-sections of the competitive priority: (1) approaches to rigorous courses of study; (2) collaborative approaches to preparing and assisting teachers and applied learning opportunities; and (3) approaches to preparing more students and addressing the needs of under-represented groups. An additional section, not required in the application, is presented on statewide initiatives and/or networks. (Contains 4 tables.)

Holding a college major in education is not correlated with effectiveness in elementary and middle school classrooms, regardless of the university at which the major was earned. Teachers do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but (except in elementary reading) no gains--and some declines--in effectiveness appear in the second decade after a teacher has begun teaching. These and other results are obtained from estimations using value-added models that control for student characteristics as well as school and (where appropriate teacher) fixed effects that estimate teacher effectiveness in reading and math for Florida students in 4th through 8th grades for six school years, 2001-02 through 2006-07. The findings suggest that teacher selection and compensation policies are in need of revision. (Contains 2 figures, 11 tables and 13 footnotes.) [This paper was prepared for the PEPG Conference "Merit Pay: Will It Work? Is It Politically Viable?"]

A growing number of states and school districts are experimenting with new approaches to paying teachers. These efforts to reform teacher pay can involve a range of state and local actors, including governors, state education officials, superintendents, local school boards, teacher unions, private foundations, community organizations, and local businesses. The broad spectrum of stakeholders invested in teacher pay issues presents a challenge for designing, implementing, and sustaining compensation reform plans. Each stakeholder represents a different constituency, has a different set of priorities, and holds his or her own beliefs about how teachers should be paid. In addition, teachers--the stakeholders directly affected by compensation reform--often have a strong attachment to the existing salary structure and may be wary of attempts to reform teacher pay. Despite these challenges, one lesson consistently stands out from the recent history of teacher pay reform: Engaging stakeholders in the design and implementation of a compensation plan is critical to its success (Kelley & Odden, 1995; Milanowski, 2003). The development of a compensation reform plan is a collaborative effort that requires the support and contribution of a variety of stakeholders. By excluding stakeholders, proponents of an alternative pay plan generate distrust and misunderstanding about the intent and purpose of their efforts. On the other hand, efforts to engage stakeholders can address their concerns and increase their buy-in. This report explores the issue of stakeholder involvement in compensation reform. It is organized into two sections. The first section explains why it is critical for states and districts to engage stakeholders in the development of a compensation reform plan. The second section describes key aspects of engaging stakeholders, with a focus on how to involve stakeholders in the design process.

Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be measured by subjective assessments? And would evaluating teachers based on a combination of subjective assessments and student outcomes more accurately gauge teacher performance than student test scores alone? Using data from a midsize Florida school district, this paper explores both questions by calculating teachers' "value added" and comparing those outcomes with subjective ratings of teachers by school principals. Teacher value-added and principals' subjective ratings are positively correlated and principals' evaluations are better predictors of a teacher's value added than traditional approaches to teacher compensation focused on experience and formal education. In settings where schools are judged on student test scores, teachers' ability to raise those scores is important to principals, as reflected in their subjective teacher ratings. Also, teachers' subject knowledge, teaching skill, and intelligence are most closely associated with both the overall subjective teacher ratings and the teacher value added. Finally, while past teacher value added predicts future teacher value added the principals' subjective ratings can provide additional information and substantially increase predictive power. (Contains 9 tables and 15 footnotes.)

In this paper we examine the research literature on teacher performance pay. Evidence clearly suggests an upsurge of interest in many states and school districts, however, expanded use of merit pay has been controversial. We briefly review the history of teacher pay policy in the U.S. and earlier cycles of interest in merit or performance-based pay. We review various critiques of its use in K-12 education and several strands of empirical research that are useful in considering its likely impact. The direct evaluation literature on incentive plans is slender, focused on short-run motivational effects, and highly diverse in terms of methodology, targeted populations, and programs evaluated. Nonetheless, it is fairly consistent in finding positive program effects, although it is not at present sufficiently robust to prescribe how systems should be designed -- e.g., optimal size of bonuses, mix of individual versus group incentives. It is sufficiently promising to support more extensive field trials and policy experiments in combination with careful follow-up evaluations. Future evaluations need to pay particular attention to the effect of these programs on the composition of the teaching workforce, since a growing body of research finds substantial variation in teacher effectiveness as measured by student achievement gains. [This paper was published in "Journal of Policy Analysis and Management" v26 n4 2007.]

This paper examines a number of issues associated with part-time faculty in community colleges. In the area of part-time faculty integration, the author surveyed 28 Florida colleges using an online survey, and received responses from 20, for a response rate of 71.4%. The survey contained five questions: (1) Are adjunct/part-time faculty listed in the printed catalog? (2) Does the college have an online faculty and staff directory on its web site? (3) Are adjunct/part-time instructors listed in the online directory? (4) Does the college provide their full-time faculty with campus e-mail addresses? and (5) Are adjunct/part-time faculty provided with campus e-mail addresses? All of the responding colleges had an online faculty and staff directory on their web sites. Of those, nine colleges (45%) reported that part-time faculty were listed in the directory, 10 colleges (95%) provided their full-time faculty with campus e-mail addresses, and 15 colleges (75%) provided their pat-time faculty with campus e-mail addresses. The paper also offers an overview of the following part-time faculty issues: (1) a review of the literature; (2) financial and other benefits to colleges of hiring part-time faculty; (3) the negative impacts of part-time faculty on the institution, the students, and the full-time faculty members; and (4) part-time faculty job satisfaction. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/NB)

This report compares the average annual earnings of teachers to the average annual earnings of college graduates in full-time salaried, nonteaching positions in six states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This is the seventh in a series of annual analyses of wage comparability studies. In addition to comparing average earnings, the report represents several other comparisons between teachers and other college-educated workers, e.g., the growth in earnings throughout a career. One purpose of the analysis is to determine amounts teachers need to be paid to make their salaries equivalent to the earnings of college graduates with similar education and work experience in other occupations, e.g., executives, administrators, and managerial supervisors. It is noted in the conclusion that despite the growth of teachers' salaries over the last 7 years in the Southeast and a slower rate of growth for the earnings of other college-educated workers in the region, teachers' salaries are still not competitive enough to ensure the attraction and retention of adequate numbers of qualified teachers. (JD)

This document provides the final two appendixes for "Improving Teaching Effectiveness: Implementation. The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching through 2013-2014" (ED580306). Appendix D provides detailed discussions of lever implementation for each site along with the detailed coded lever tables. Appendix E summarizes the responses of teachers and school leaders to survey questions about the allocation of their work time.

Can districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) use contemporary ideas about teacher evaluation, management, and support to spark big improvements in student outcomes? To answer this question, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative with seven sites across the country that had diverse needs and student populations. Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) are evaluating these efforts. Although the initiative will continue through the 2015-2016 school year, interim results--based on extensive surveys, interviews, site visits, and reviews of fiscal records--offer valuable insights for those considering or adopting similar reforms. This executive summary highlights findings from the study. [For the full report, see ED580306.]

To improve the U.S. education system through more-effective classroom teaching, in school year 2009-2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching sites. The Intensive Partnerships Initiative is based on the premise that efforts to improve instruction can benefit from high-quality measures of teaching effectiveness. The initiative seeks to determine whether a school can implement a high-quality measure of teaching effectiveness and use it to support and manage teachers in ways that improve student outcomes. This approach is consistent with broader national trends in which performance-based teacher evaluation is increasingly being mandated at state and local levels. To test the theory in practice, the foundation sought partnership sites. It selected three school districts--Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, Shelby County Schools in Tennessee, and Pittsburgh Public Schools in Pennsylvania. The foundation also selected four charter management organizations--Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and the Partnerships to Uplift Communities, all in California. To evaluate Intensive Partnership implementation, researchers from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research interviewed annually central office staff at each site and teachers and other staff in a sample of schools for each site. They also used data from annual teacher and school-leader surveys and documents that the sites and the foundation provided. This report summarizes the implementation status of key reform elements at each site when the Intensive Partnerships initiative launched and five years later in the spring of 2014. [For the executive summary, see ED580307. For Appendixes D and E, see ED580322.]