Texas reduced new teacher preparation requirements in 2001 to allow more alternate paths to licensure. Within 5 years, this policy change resulted in more than half of the state's new teachers being alternatively licensed. Using a series of first difference models, this study examines the relationship between the increased supply of new teachers…

This qualitative study investigated what factors kept teachers committed to teaching in one rural east Texas school district despite the perceived educational inequalities of rural districts compared to suburban and urban districts. When it comes to teacher retention, rural school leaders cite school environment and community lifestyle…

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…

In the United States most teacher compensation issues are decided at the school district level. However, a group of states have chosen to play a role in teacher pay decisions by instituting statewide teacher salary schedules. Education Commission of the States has found that 17 states currently make use of teacher salary schedules. This education…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Education Policy." Contents include: (1) Texas Legislature Concentrates on…

Merit pay programs for educators--sometimes referred to a "pay for performance"--attempt to tie a teacher's compensation to his/her performance in the classroom. While the idea of merit pay for classroom teachers has been around for several decades, only now is it starting to be implemented in a growing number of districts around the…

Teacher compensation reforms have been on the rise in recent years, yet research has yet to fully demonstrate how teachers interpret these policies and how they may influence their instructional practices and professional decisions. This qualitative study of a performance pay program in an urban district in Texas drew on cognitive approaches to…

Value-added measures of teacher effectiveness are the centerpiece of a national movement to evaluate, promote, compensate, and dismiss teachers based in part on their students' test results. Federal, state, and local policy-makers have adopted these methods en masse in recent years in an attempt to objectively quantify teaching effectiveness and…

Search theory suggests that early career job changes on balance lead to better matches that benefit both workers and firms, but this may not hold true in teacher labor markets characterized by salary rigidities, barriers to entry, and substantial differences in working conditions that are difficult for institutions to alter. Education policy…

This article explores disparities in faculty salaries between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan Texas community colleges. The analysis reveals a significant difference in faculty salaries for the 2000 and 2005 academic years respectively. The study found no significant difference in the rate of change in faculty salaries from 2000 to 2005.…

The Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program was state-funded and provided annual grants to schools to design and implement performance pay plans during the 2006-07 to 2009-10 school year. TEEG was implemented each year (i.e., Cycle) in approximately 1,000 high poverty, high performing Texas public schools. Performance pay for teachers…

District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) is a state-funded program in Texas that provides grants to districts for the implementation of locally-designed performance pay plans. All districts in the state are eligible to receive grants, but participation is voluntary. As D.A.T.E. continues in its second year of operation with approximately…

This study examines trends in Black student achievement and in the Black-White achievement gap over the period 2000 to 2007, employing data from ten states drawn from the NAEP Grade 8 mathematics assessments. Results are obtained for three levels of aggregation: the state, school poverty stratum within the state, and schools within poverty…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the second-year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, a statewide educator incentive program that operated in Texas. As part of this larger study, evaluators examined how participation in the TEEG…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the first-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, one of several statewide educator incentive programs in Texas. Findings are based on the responses of full-time instructional personnel at over 1,000 TEEG schools…