Differential Pay: Oregon

Retaining Effective Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should support differential pay for effective teaching in shortage and high-needs areas.

Meets a small part of goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Differential Pay: Oregon results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/OR-Differential-Pay-9

Analysis of Oregon's policies

Oregon supports incentives that can be earned by teaching certain subjects. Teachers in the fields of "mathematics, science, foreign languages or bilingual education, or in any other field of expertise determined by a state education agency to have a shortage of qualified teachers" are eligible to participate in federal loan forgiveness programs.

Oregon also supports differential pay for those teaching in high-needs schools. Eligible teachers at designated low-income schools may receive up to $5,000 for certain loans.

Citation

Recommendations for Oregon

Expand differential pay initiatives for teachers in subject shortage areas and high-needs schools.
Although the state's program is a desirable recruitment and retention tool for teachers early in the career, Oregon should expand its program to include those already part of the teaching pool. A salary differential is an attractive incentive for every teacher.

State response to our analysis

Oregon was helpful in providing NCTQ with the facts necessary for this analysis.

Research rationale

Two recent studies emphasize the need for differential pay. In "Teacher Quality and Teacher Mobility", L. Feng and T. Sass find that high performing teachers tend to transfer to schools with a large proportion of other high performing teachers and students, while low performing teachers cluster in bottom quartile schools (CALDER: Urban Institute 2011).  Another study from T. Sass et al found that the least effective teachers in high-poverty schools were considerably less effective than the least effective teachers in low-poverty schools.

Charles Clotfelter, et al., "Would Higher Salaries Keep Teachers in High-Poverty Schools? Evidence from a Policy Intervention in North Carolina," Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, May 16, 2006 at:
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12285.

Julie Kowal, et al., "Financial Incentives for Hard to Staff Positions," Center for American Progress, November 2008.

A study by researchers at Rand found that higher pay lowered attrition, and the effect was stronger in high-needs school districts. Every $1,000 increase was estimated to decrease attrition by more than 6 percent. See S.N. Kirby, et al., "Supply and Demand of Minority Teachers in Texas: Problems and Prospects," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1999; 21(1): 47-66 at: http://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/47