Using ARRA Funds to Improve Teacher Effectiveness and Equitable Distribution: An Interactive Mapping Tool

Funding Stream: All examples provided below may be supported using funds made available through the Title I, Part A; State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF); and Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) programs. To the extent consistent with program requirements, districts and schools also may use SFSF funds for approved activities under Title I and IDEA, Part B, funds to support these or similar strategies and are encouraged to do so. The U.S. Department of Education will supplement these examples over time with ideas about best practices from schools throughout the nation. Current guidance documents are available for Title I, Part A, and the SFSF program at http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/programs.html. 

Release of Funds: These funds are available during Phases 1 and 2.

Readiness to Pursue Steps

• Establish a working group comprised of teachers, principals, union representatives, and other key education stakeholders to establish buy-in from each group.
• Develop an appropriate and comprehensive program design.
  • What type of incentives will be offered?
  • Who will be eligible to receive the award?
  • How much will the awards be?
• Determine the performance measures to be used.
  • What type of student achievement measure will be used?
  • Does the school system have an appropriate teacher evaluation tool?
• Determine whether the school system has sufficient information technology capacity to collect the necessary data for making performance-based compensation decisions.
• Determine the annual cost of the program.
• Develop a plan to identify funding sources beyond ARRA for program sustainability.
• Develop and implement a public information and media communication plan.
  • Design informational materials targeted to specific stakeholder groups (e.g., parents, community, media, teachers, and principals).
  • Determine how the information will be made publicly available (e.g., brochures and pamphlets or a website).
• Develop an evaluation plan and establish benchmarks to assess the program's progress.

Promising Practices

• Support long-term teacher salary policies that are market sensitive, competitive, and based on performance.
  • Increase teacher pay overall.
  • Increase teacher pay for certain groups of teachers (e.g., for those in high-needs subjects, at high-needs schools, in leadership roles).
  • Involve all stakeholders in any changes to pay policy.
  • Ensure that resources are available to sustain the commitment to pay reform.
• Provide short-term inducements to address immediate recruitment problems.
  • Consider signing bonuses for new teachers in areas of shortage.
  • Consider student loan repayments for new teachers in areas of shortage.
  • Consider housing or relocation assistance for teachers in hard-to-staff schools or shortage areas.

The Center for Educator Compensation Reform (CECR), a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education and created to support the TIF grantees, developed a national map that highlights compensation reforms across the country and provides links to more information. See http://cecr.ed.gov/initiatives/maps/ for more information. These profiles provide examples of the vast array of performance-based compensation programs across the country.

Intersects With: Recruitment

Funding Stream: All examples provided below may be supported using funds made available through the Title I, Part A; SFSF; and TIF programs. To the extent consistent with program requirements, districts and schools also may use SFSF funds for approved activities under Title I and IDEA, Part B, funds to support these or similar strategies and are encouraged to do so. The U.S. Department of Education will supplement these examples over time with ideas about best practices from schools throughout the nation. Current guidance documents are available for Title I, Part A, and the SFSF program at http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/programs.html.

Release of Funds: These funds are available during Phases 1 and 2.

Readiness to Pursue Steps

• Determine whether the school system has sufficient information technology capacity.
• Collect and analyze data to determine where the significant teacher shortages occur.
• Determine which attractive characteristics already exist in the state.
• Work with districts to set local goals concerning recruitment and retention and track success.
• Set state-level recruitment goals and track success.
• Ensure that poor and minority schools and districts do not have unequal access to high-quality teachers.
• Actively facilitate the development of relationships between districts and all potential applicant pools.
  • Consider partnerships with teacher education programs (both traditional and alternative).
  • Consider partnership with community colleges.
  • Consider partnerships with the pool of inactive teachers, including retired teachers.
  • Consider cultivating future teachers through high school programs.

Promising Practices

Many alternative certification programs include recruitment bonuses for attracting teachers into hard-to-staff schools and hard-to-fill subjects. CECR, a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education and created to support the TIF grantees, developed a national map that highlights compensation reforms across the country and provides links to more information. See http://cecr.ed.gov/initiatives/maps/ for more information. These profiles provide examples of the vast array of alternative compensation programs that include recruitment bonuses across the country.

Intersects With: Performance Management and Leadership Development

Funding Stream: Title I, Educational Technology State Grants, SFSF Program, TIF Program

Release of Funds: These funds are available during Phases 1 and 2.

Citation: Title I Guidance, SFSF Guidance

Readiness to Pursue Steps

• Establish a working group comprised of teachers, principals, union representatives, district administration, and state education agency (SEA) staff.
• Create state standards for effective teaching practice.
• Determine whether the SEA has sufficient information technology capacity to collect the necessary data.
• Develop a plan to implement the new teacher evaluation system.
• Estimate cost of developing new evaluation instruments and ongoing implementation costs.
• Develop a plan to identify funding sources beyond ARRA, if needed, for sustainability.
• Establish and implement a fair and reliable teacher evaluation system that provides ongoing feedback to teachers about their performance based on objective measures.

Promising Practices

CECR, a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education and created to support the TIF grantees, developed a national map that highlights compensation reforms across the country and provides links to more information. See http://cecr.ed.gov/initiatives/maps/ for more information. These profiles provide examples of the vast array of performance-based compensation programs across the country, including the use of evaluation instruments to base teacher pay on classroom performance.

Timing and Requirements for ARRA Funding

Title I

• The second phase of Title I ARRA funds were scheduled for distribution on September 30, 2009. On Monday, August 3, 2009, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued a press release announcing that the release of the second half of these funds will accelerate to “on or around September 1, 2009.”
• The Title I fact sheet issued on April 1, 2009 stated, “In order to receive the remaining Title I, Part A ARRA funds, a state must submit, for review and approval by the Department, additional information that addresses how the state will meet the accountability and reporting requirements in section 1512 of the ARRA.” At the Title I directors meeting held the last week in July, however, ED announced that no additional information would be required to receive the second half of the Title I ARRA funds.

SFSF

• On July 29, 2009, a notice of proposed requirements, definitions, and approval criteria for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Phase II, was published in the Federal Register. The deadline for comments on these draft materials is August 28, 2009.
• The metrics by which ED will monitor state progress are contained in these documents and identified as “assurance indicators and descriptors.” ED also published a table that indicates, for each reporting item, whether the state is required to provide new information or if it is already being reporting to ED.

TIF

• A fact sheet on the TIF ARRA on the ED website states that ED anticipates the proposed program requirements will be published in the Federal Register before the end of August 2009.