Strategic compensation in the form of performance-based pay, multiple pathways to advancement for classroom teachers, and competitive pay to attract experienced, effective teachers and principals to low-performing, hard-to-staff schools and/or content areas are all aligned with TEA’s strategic priority #1: recruit, support, and retain teachers and principals. Strategic compensation yields benefit in multiple areas, many of which are related to Title II, Part A priorities:
- Recruitment – strategic compensation can attract effective teachers to districts and campuses that struggle with recruitment. The added compensation can help struggling campuses in a competitive job market find and employ talented educators in all areas, particularly those subject areas that are hard to fill. In addition, a district would hope to increase the number of applicants for each teaching position, thereby expanding the pool of talented individuals from which to select.
- Support – with a distributed leadership model involving teacher leaders, principals can use the expertise of the staff to offer more support for teaches in the areas of instruction, particularly with the content pedagogy expertise that these teacher leaders have. Teacher leaders can offer more hands-on coaching, mentoring, and development of other teachers, increasing the support teachers receive.
- Retention – strategic compensation potentially improves retention on several levels: o Retention of effective teachers and principals who would otherwise look for vacancies at other campuses with higher compensation; o Retention of effective teachers by offering career pathways that do not require leaving teaching; and o Retention of all teachers by improving their perception of how well they are supported and their own efficacy in teaching.
Strategic Compensation At-A-Glance
State Lead for the Center of Strategic Compensation