The Center for American Progress just released a report on the role of financial incentives in staffing high-need schools. The thoughtful report draws on lessons from the military, the civil service and government to frame how policymakers can attract and retain talented teachers to challenging schools. The authors of the report make very good points — i.e., the need for competitive base pay as a starting point and the need to ensure that incentives offered are meaningful.
However, if the authors of the CAP report had dug a bit deeper, they could have pointed to the problems the military has had in recruiting new soldiers. With enormous incentives (up to $40K), the military has met its recruitment goals – but they have dramatically lowered standards, with more high school dropouts and criminals now being accepted.
Working conditions also matter when it comes to recruiting good teachers for high-need schools – as articulated by Ariel Sacks of New York City, a Teacher Leaders Network member who, along with Renee Moore of Cleveland, Miss., attended last week's CAP meeting on behalf of Center for Teaching Quality. Indeed, accomplished teachers typically say that working conditions matter more than money — and what matters most are (1) principals who know how to embrace and utilize teacher leaders; (2) access to qualified, experienced colleagues, and (3) freedom to teach students, and not just to a test or a scripted curriculum. Read more on such matters in our reports, which are built upon research evidence and the voices of expert teachers.
Despite the evidence, the CAP authors seem to ignore these issues in staffing high need schools – primarily because they are not “as easy to modify” as pay. Like expert teachers Ms. Sacks and Ms. Moore, Claus Von Zastrow at the Learning First Alliance expresses some frustrations in his recent blog over the CAP report and its munificent pragmatism about what can and cannot be done to improve the teacher working conditions that impact student achievement. He writes eloquently that policy wonks can, “[in] seek(ing) solutions to grave school staffing challenges … suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
