Attracting and Retaining Highly Effective Educators in Hard-to-Staff Schools

Attracting and retaining effective teachers in high-poverty schools remains a persistent challenge. We evaluate the impact of an initiative that offered substantial performance-based compensation to highly effective teachers in the lowest-achieving schools. We find that the program led to dramatic improvements in achievement, nearly closing the gap between the targeted schools and the district average. When the program was later reversed for some campuses, effective teachers departed at high rates, resulting in an immediate decline in student achievement. The results underscore the potential for effectiveness-based compensating differentials to attract and retain effective teachers in disadvantaged schools.