Moving High-Performing Teachers: Implementation of Transfer Incentives in Seven Districts

This report describes the implementation and intermediate impacts of an intervention designed to provide incentives for a school district’s highest-performing teachers to work in its lowest-achieving schools. The report is part of a larger study in which random assignment was used to form two equivalent groups of classrooms organized into teacher “teams” that are composed of teachers in the same grade level and subject (math, reading, or both in the case of an elementary school grade). Teams were assigned to either a treatment group that had the chance to participate in the intervention described below and or a control group that did not. Intermediate outcomes, measured for both the treatment and control teams, include the mix of teachers who make up the team, the climate of collaboration and cooperation in the team, and the way in which resources are allocated within the teacher team. A future report will focus on the impacts of the intervention on student achievement and other outcomes like retention. The study addresses implementation and impact. This report focuses primarily on the implementation and intermediate impacts, the first two questions listed below. The third question listed below will be the focus of a future report. • What was the TTI implementation experience with respect to the teacher recruitment process? • What were the teacher placement results and intermediate impacts of TTI? For example, who filled the vacancies compared to those who would have filled the vacancies in the absence of the intervention? How did the intervention affect collaboration? How did it affect the allocation of resources within the school, such as assignment of students to teachers, teacher mentoring, and teacher leadership?

• What was the impact of TTI on teacher retention and student achievement?3 The methods for answering these questions include descriptive tabulations (for implementation questions) and causal analysis (for impact questions). The causal analysis relies on a random assignment procedure discussed next.