As public budgets have grown tighter over the past decade, states and school districts have sought ways to control the growth of spending. One increasingly common strategy employed to rein in costs is to offer experienced teachers with high salaries financial incentives to retire early. Although early retirement incentive (ERI) programs have been…

Over 50% of the nation's teachers and principals are Baby Boomers. During the next four years the nation could lose a third of its most accomplished educators to retirement. The wave of departures will peak during the 2010-11 school year, when over 100,000 veteran teachers could leave. In less than a decade more than half of today's teachers--1.7…