| Rachel Rosen
Teachers College, Columbia University
Do financial incentives for shortage-field teachers lead to increases in teacher quality and retention?
Currently, most teachers in the United States are paid on a single-salary schedule that provides uniform increases for additional credentials and years of experience to all teachers in a given district. However, a minority of schools have begun to offer market-based pay incentives to teachers in subjects where there are chronic shortages, such as math, science, special education, and bilingual education. Using data from the 1999-2000, 2003-2004, and 2007-2008 waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey, this study utilizes an instrumental variables approach to examine the questions of whether shortage-area incentives increase the quality of teachers recruited to fill shortage-field teaching positions, as well as whether they reduce teacher-turnover in these subject areas.
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