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Differential Pay: South Carolina

Retaining Effective Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings
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: South Carolina results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/SC-Differential-Pay-9

Analysis of South Carolina's policies

South Carolina supports incentives that teachers can earn by teaching certain subjects or in high-needs schools. The state's Teacher Loan Program allows eligible teachers to cancel portions of their student loans by teaching in "certain critical geographical and subject areas." 

In addition, teachers who are National Board Certified are eligible to receive a $5,000 annual salary stipend. However, this differential pay is not tied to high-needs schools or subject-area shortages. 

Citation

Recommendations for South Carolina

Expand differential pay initiatives for teachers in subject shortage areas and high-needs schools.
Although the state's loan forgiveness program is a desirable recruitment and retention tool for teachers early in their careers, South Carolina should expand its program to include those already part of the teaching pool. A salary differential is an attractive incentive for every teacher, not just those with education debt.

Consider tying National Board supplement to teaching in high-needs schools.
This differential pay could be an incentive to attract some of the state's most effective teachers to its low-performing schools.

State response to our analysis

South Carolina noted that the state focuses its efforts for the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) initiative on high-needs schools.

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  • South Carolina

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Performance Pay
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
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

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