Extensive teacher mobility can undermine policy efforts to develop a high-quality workforce. In response, policymakers have increasingly championed financial incentives to retain teachers. In 2006, ...the Denver Public Schools adopted an alternative teacher compensation reform, the Professional Compensation System for Teachers ("ProComp"). Using longitudinal teacher-level data from 2001-2002 to 2010-2011,1 estimate hazard models that identify the relationship between ProComp and teacher mobility. Specifically, I compare mobility patterns of teachers who received a ProComp incentive with those who did not, with special attention to teacher mobility in high-poverty schools. Results suggest receiving a ProComp incentive is associated with a significant decrease in the odds of departure. This appears to be driven by a decrease in a teacher's odds of leaving the district rather than moving to a new school within the district, by voluntary ProComp participants and by teachers who receive incentives that total more than $ 5,000.
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.
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.
This report describes the implementation of professional development (PD) reforms and efforts to use teacher effectiveness (TE) data to inform PD through the third year of the initiative for all ...seven sites: Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), Shelby County Schools (SCS, formerly Memphis City Schools), Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), and the four charter management organizations that operate under the umbrella of The College Ready Promise (TCRP). These charter management organizations include Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC). This report briefly describes the approach each site is taking to link TE data to PD opportunities and compare the main features of those efforts across sites. It also documents the responses of teachers to the PD opportunities provided as of spring 2013. The report presents interim evidence regarding one of the key tenets of the IP reform--the idea that evidence regarding teachers' performance using multiple data sources can be used to create professional development opportunities tailored to meet teachers' individual needs. The report addresses two broad research questions: (1) What programs and practices have IP sites adopted to offer PD that is customized to teachers' needs, and how do key features of these efforts differ across the sites? (2) What opinions have teachers (and, to a lesser extent, school leaders) expressed about the evaluation and PD practices their sites have adopted?
Extensive teacher mobility can undermine policy efforts to develop a high-quality workforce. As one response, policymakers have increasingly championed financial incentives as a way to retain ...teachers. In January, 2006, Denver Public School District, the Denver Classroom Teachers' Association, and Denver voters approved and funded one of the most prominent alternative teacher compensation reforms in the United States: the "Professional Compensation System for Teachers" ("ProComp"). This dissertation studies ProComp and endeavors to contribute to research on the potential of financial incentives to increase teacher retention. The study draws on panel data and teacher interview data to investigate three inter-related questions: the extent to which ProComp has increased retention rates, the relationship between retention and teacher quality, and the reasons underlying these effects. Beyond the effects observed for schools in the district as a whole, special attention is paid to the effects of ProComp on retention rates at schools that serve high concentrations of poor students--schools where teachers are eligible to receive a financial incentive to stay. Findings suggest teachers do respond to financial incentives, albeit at a seemingly low level. Furthermore, analyses point to a greater impact on retention rates for schools with high ProComp participation and for the high-poverty schools where teachers are eligible for the retention incentive. These gains also appear to be associated with above-average teacher quality, although the direction of this relationship is unknown. Analyses of teacher interview data do not rule out the possibility that some teachers may respond to financial incentives, but these interviews do suggest their responses may be tempered by the importance of non-pecuniary factors. This dissertation is intended to contribute to the slim body of literature about financial incentives as a policy lever to increase teacher retention. While improved retention is not a silver bullet for providing all children with access to high-quality teachers and a better education, it is an important step. Programs such as ProComp and research about its effects contribute valuable insight about the potential of financial incentives to improve retention, particularly at high-poverty schools. The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.
