Compensation for Prior Work Experience:
Georgia
Retaining Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Georgia's policies
In Georgia, local districts are encouraged to compensate teachers for certain types of related prior subject-area work experience. For all positions requiring a state-issued certification, the state allows a defined number of experiences to count toward salary requirements, with most of them relating to the education field, such as serving as a teacher in a foreign country or serving in a professional position at the Department of Education.
Recommendations for Georgia
Expand policy to encourage local districts to compensate all new teachers with relevant prior work experience.
Georgia should not limit this policy to only certain specific education field experiences. Such compensation would be attractive to career changers in other fields, such as in the STEM subjects.
State response to our analysis
Georgia noted that SBOE 160-5-2-05, Experience for Salary Purposes, was revised in 2010 to expand areas for which experience may be recognized to include charter schools and experience in school districts that have been granted increased autonomy. These districts may hire personnel from industry who not do possess regular teaching certificates.
Georgia also pointed out that serving in a professional position in private industry that is job-related to the position is entering in the Local Unit Administration (LUA). In this case, a maximum of three years' credit shall be granted for experience earned after July 1, 1995, and the individual shall be placed on the State Salary Schedule at the appropriate step to reflect three years of creditable experience.
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Georgia
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Preparation Programs
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale
Debra Hare, et al., "Teacher Shortages in the Midwest: Current Trends and Future Issues," Center for School Change, University of Minnesota, 2000; Paul Harrington, "Attracting New Teachers Requires Changing Old Rules," The College Board Review, 2001; 192: 6-11; Patrick M. Shields, et al., "The Status of the Teaching Profession 2001," The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, 2001.
Much of the blame for the difficulty in hiring people with technical expertise falls on the single salary schedule that rewards only experience and degree level. See D. Goldhaber and Albert Yung-Hsu Liu, "Teacher Salary Structure and the Decision to Teach in Public Schools: An Analysis of Recent College Graduates," Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2005.
People with technical skills are in high demand in the non-teacher labor market. See Cathleen Stasz and Dominic J. Brewer, "Academic Skills at Work: Two Perspectives," Rand Corporation, 1999. See also Burton A. Weisbrod and Peter Karpoff, "Monetary Returns to College Education, Student Ability and College Quality," Review of Economics and Statistics, 1968; 50(4): 491-97.
It has also been shown that teachers who teach technical subject matters have higher rates of attrition. See M. Podgursky, et al., "The Academic Quality of Public School Teachers: An Analysis of Entry and Exit Behavior," Economics of Education Review, 2004; 23: 507-18.
In addition, research has shown that math and science teachers—both men and women—with high ACT scores are the first to leave the teaching profession. See Sheila N. Kirby, et al., "Staffing At-risk School Districts in Texas: Problems and Prospects," Rand, 1999.
See also Robin R. Henke and Lisa Zahn, "Attrition of New Teachers Among Recent College Graduates," Postsecondary Education Descriptive Analysis Reports, U.S. Department of Education, 2001.