Incentives

This article describes efforts by a school district in Arkansas to attract special education teachers by offering a $4,500 signing bonus over 3 years, in addition to a $2,500 annual stipend.

This program from the Illinois Student Assistance Commission offers tuition exemptions for up to 250 students seeking initial licensure in special education at an accredited Illinois university. This program will exempt candidates from paying tuition and mandatory fees at an eligible institution for up to four calendar years, given they commit to teach in Illinois in the field of special education.

The Teacher Opportunity Program (TOP) offers tuition reimbursement grants to Arkansas teachers and administrators. Teachers and administrators may apply for reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses paid for up to six college credit hours completed for each academic year, not to exceed $3,000.

This report summarizes research on the effect of monetary incentives on teacher recruitment and retention and how compensation-based incentives can be used to address both subject-level shortages and school-level shortages.

This report describes promising approaches to develop a “portfolio” of financial incentives, including performance bonuses, loan repayment, scholarship programs, and performance-based incentives, to boost recruitment and retention in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas.

The goals of Iowa's Teacher Leadership and Compensation System are to attract promising new teachers with competitive starting salaries, reward effective teachers with leadership opportunities and increased compensation, and foster greater professional collaboration between teachers.

This program combats teacher shortages by setting minimum starting salaries, offering supplemental earnings through critical shortage area signing initiatives, and providing visas to attract international educators.

This article describes a collaborative effort between the Portland Educational Association and Portland Public Schools to negotiate a salary schedule that rewards teacher participation in a wide variety of professional learning opportunities.

The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program is a competitive, merit-based forgivable loans for service program that provides up to $4,125 a semester ($8,250 a year) for up to four years to highly-qualified students committed to teaching special education or a STEM field in a North Carolina public school.

The Traineeship Program allocates federal professional development funds to provide tuition assistance for special educators and preschool teachers to obtain certification in the area in which they are teaching. A major focus of the Traineeship program is on teachers seeking alternative certification, emergency or probationary certification, and working toward full certification while enrolled in a Kentucky institution of higher education.