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

Intersects With: Compensation and Incentives

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

• 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 partnerships 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. 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 alternative compensation programs that include recruitment bonuses across the country.

Timing and Requirements for ARRA Funding

Title I

• In 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 that “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.