Impact Evaluation Of Moving High-Performing Teachers to Low-Performing Schools

Contractor: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.; The New Teacher Project; and Optimal Solutions Group

Background/Research Questions:

Title II, Part A, the Improving Teacher State Formula Grants program, is the primary federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to support a high quality teacher in every classroom. The program, funded at $2.9 billion in FY08, targets high poverty districts and funds a broad array of allowable activities such as support for certification including alternative certification, teacher mentoring and induction, intensive professional development, recruitment, retention, and merit-based teacher and principal pay strategies as well as class size reduction. This study evaluates a pay incentive strategy designed to redistribute teacher quality within the district to provide an important source of information for this program.

Research indicates that high quality teachers are critical to raising student achievement in low-performing schools, but schools most in need often have difficulty in attracting and retaining high-quality teachers. Various policies of merit pay are a growing strategy of interest to address this misdistribution of teacher quality. Therefore, this evaluation studies one form of merit pay that incentives teachers to teach in low-performing schools with high-need students. The research questions are:

• With a yearly bonus, will identified high-performing teachers transfer to teach in targeted low-performing schools?
• What is the impact on student achievement of high-performing teachers who move to low-performing schools?

Design:

The study will be conducted in 10 school districts (160 schools) and the design consists of segmenting the schools within districts to those eligible and not eligible for the treatment (the pay incentive). The treatment eligible schools are randomly assigned to receive the treatment or not. Using value added, high-performing teachers teaching in the non-eligible schools are identified. The two-year treatment, conducted in school years 2009–10 and 2010–11, consists of hiring among the pool of those identified as high performing and interested in teaching in the treatment schools. The control schools follow normal hiring practices. Program transfer teachers receive a transfer incentive for each of the two years that they remain in the treatment school. Existing teachers in the treatment schools that meet program criteria and remain in the treatment school during the two-year treatment receive a retention payment. Data collection includes measures of teacher characteristics and hiring experiences, district/school hiring experiences and practices, and student achievement obtained from administrative records.

Duration: 5 years (September 2007 – September 2012)

Current Status: A pilot to test the feasibility of conducting such a study is in progress in one district (eight schools). Recruitment for a full-scale study to be conducted in 2009–11 is underway.