Differential Pay: Oklahoma
Retaining Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Oklahoma's policies
Oklahoma supports differential pay by which a teacher can
earn additional compensation by teaching certain subjects. According to state
statute, "Districts shall be encouraged to provide compensation schedules
to reflect district policies and circumstances, including differential pay for
different subject areas." Teachers of mathematics, science or other
critical-needs areas are eligible for loan forgiveness.
Oklahoma also supports differential pay for those teaching at high-need schools but leaves it up to the school district to determine the specifics:
"Districts shall be encouraged to provide completed schedules to reflect
district policies and circumstances, including...special incentives for teachers
in districts with specific geographical attributes."
Teachers who are National Board Certified after June 30, 2013, are eligible to receive a $1,000 salary incentive. However, this differential pay is not tied to teaching at high-need schools.
Recommendations for Oklahoma
Consider
tying National Board supplements to teaching in high-need schools.
This differential pay could be an incentive to attract some
of Oklahoma's most effective teachers to low-performing schools.
State response to our analysis
Oklahoma had no comment on this goal.
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Oklahoma
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- 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
Pensions
Research rationale
States should help
address chronic shortages and needs.
States should ensure that
state-level policies (such as a uniform salary schedule) do not interfere with
districts' flexibility in compensating teachers in ways that best meet their
individual needs and resources. However, when it comes to addressing chronic
shortages, states should do more than simply get out of the way. They should
provide direct support for differential pay for effective teaching in shortage
subject areas and high-need schools. Attracting effective and qualified
teachers to high-need schools or filling vacancies in hard-to-staff subjects
are problems that are frequently beyond a district's ability to solve. States
that provide direct support for differential pay in these areas are taking an
important step in promoting the equitable distribution of quality teachers.
Short of providing direct support, states can also use policy levers to
indicate to districts that differential pay is not only permissible but
necessary.
Differential Pay: Supporting Research
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 Institute, Working Paper 57, January 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 http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001469-calder-working-paper-52.pdf.
C. Clotfelter, E. Glennie, H. Ladd, and J. Vigdor, "Would Higher Salaries Keep Teachers in High-Poverty Schools? Evidence from a Policy Intervention in North Carolina," NBER Working Paper 12285, June 2006.
J. Kowal, B. Hassel, and E. Hassel, "Financial Incentives for Hard-To-Staff Positions: Cross-Sector Lessons for Public Education,"
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. Kirby, M. Berends, and S. Naftel, "Supply and Demand of Minority Teachers in Texas: Problems and
Prospects," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Volume 21, No. 1, March 20, 1999, pp. 47-66 at: http://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/47.