Teacher Incentive Fund

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Score Sheet for Grantees Under the Teacher Incentive Fund

Grantees and Abstracts for Teacher Incentive Fund

Because of ongoing budget negotiations, previously posted 5-Year award amounts are now inaccurate and have been removed.

Applicant Name: Achievement First, Inc.
PR/Award #: S385A100155
State: NY

Achievement First (AF) is submitting an application for the main competition of the Teacher Incentive Fund to support AF's Teacher Career Pathway performance-based compensation model, which will include higher levels of compensation for individual teachers who demonstrate increasing effectiveness, and school-wide bonuses for student achievement growth.

The mission of Achievement First is to deliver on the promise of equal educational opportunity for all of America's children. AF is a non-profit charter management organization operating 19 campuses under nine charters in New York City and Connecticut. Hailing from some of the lowest performing districts in their states, students arrive at AF schools performing two to three years below grade level. Despite this achievement gap, scholars in schools throughout the AF network quickly grow to outperform their district and state peers across the board, proving that our country's vexing achievement gap can be closed.

AF's most significant challenge is in attracting, developing and retaining highly effective teachers, particularly as we grow to serve over 12,000 students. Aligned with our overall talent strategy, AF would like to implement a Teacher Career Pathway; a formal, sustained model for recognizing and developing excellence in teaching. During a teacher's career, they will have an opportunity to move up through a four-tiered career pathway, accompanied by increased financial compensation and differentiated professional opportunities. Teachers will be evaluated on both the outcomes of their teaching: (1) student achievement growth and (2) development of student character; and their inputs (3) quality instruction and planning and (4) professional core values and contributions to team achievement. Our theory of action is that by recognizing and rewarding excellence, we will be able to recruit and retain talented teachers for our scholars.

Applicant Name: ARISE High School
PR/Award #: S385A100145
State: CA

The Reach Teacher Incentive Fund Consortium (Reach Consortium) is a network of independent charter schools located in Alameda County, California applying for the main competition of the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant. The Consortium is led by Arise High School, an independent charter school as well as the lead Local Education Agency, the lead fiscal and legal agent; and by the Reach Institute for School Leadership, a public benefit not-for-profit and the lead program agency. The consortium includes three high schools and one K-8 school, serving approximately 1,000 students in total. The consortium schools employ 50 teachers, 17 principals, assistant principals, and other instructional leaders (department chairs, coaches, etc.), as well as 27 additional eligible support staff.

The project has five key objectives:

  1. To measurably improve student achievement in Reach Consortium partner schools based on valid, reliable, and value-added performance measures.
  2. To develop a means of evaluating teacher, leader, and school performance that recognizes differentiated individual and collective contributions to student learning.
  3. To create individual and collective incentives for improving student achievement to reward teachers, school leaders, support staff and teams based on their contributions to student learning.
  4. To build the capacity of individual teachers, teacher teams, school leaders, and school teams to maximize student achievement based on the identified measures.
  5. To rigorously evaluate project implementation and results for the purposes of ongoing improvement and dissemination of promising practices.

Applicant Name: Arizona State University
PR/Award #: S385A100077
State: AZ

The Arizona Ready-for-Rigor Project, led by Arizona State University (ASU) in coordination with the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), is a statewide network of schools in partner districts serving high-need students. This coalition will implement a performance-based compensation system in historically struggling schools for the purpose of increasing student achievement, retaining highly effective educators, and fostering exemplary school culture in the highest-need communities across Arizona.

Through the Teacher Incentive Fund grant program, the Arizona Ready-for-Rigor Project will pursue three objectives, including (1) use of a statewide Ready-for-Rigor Support Center to work with a network of 59 historically struggling, high-need schools to achieve four key outcomes at each site, including ambitious achievement goals and effectiveness ratings; (2) use targeted, higher-than-average, teacher pay-for-performance bonuses; use targeted, technology-enabled, and district-based principal and/or teacher preparation programs; and prepare, recruit, and retain highly effective principals and teachers in the hard-to-staff schools and areas; and, (3) contribute to the research knowledge base on performance-based compensation systems by participating in Mathematica's national evaluation study.

As part of the Ready-for-Rigor Project, ASU, ADE, NIET, and partner districts will collaborate to deliver an "Intensive Care Unit" (ICU) level of support to the 59 targeted schools. The two strategic imperatives for this statewide campaign are full-fidelity implementation of the TAP system for comprehensive school reform and use of student achievement, teacher performance, school leadership, and school function data to drive customized professional development and services delivered in an ICU approach to achieve the target objectives. Realizing the scope of the "59" challenge, the Ready-for-Rigor Project will create a statewide support center and a network of Regional Executive Master Teacher Leaders. The Ready-for-Rigor Support Center will be anchored by the partnering organizations and will leverage the resources of a sizable Teacher Quality Partnership grant funded in December 2009 to assist with recruitment and retention efforts. The partnership will hold itself to monitoring its ongoing impact as well as achieving the ultimate goal of eliminating the shortage of effective teachers and principals in all partner district schools.

Applicant Name: Augusta School District
PR/Award #: S385A100047
State: AR

Through the TIF grant Augusta Public Schools leadership team will work in partnership with teachers, parents and other professionals to implement an innovative and research-oriented, performance based compensation system that will provide teacher and principals with competitive salaries and offer incentives and support to motivate teachers to increase their effectiveness. The program is dedicated to improving student success by aligning compensation policies with human resource procedures and ensuring both are driven by student achievement results. All three of the schools in the district are targeted in this project, and each school is high-need. Throughout the duration of the project, the PBCS will impact 550 students and 53 teachers annually.

The Augusta Public Schools PBCS will be based on the System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP) and will implement a comprehensive approach to performance based compensation by providing multiple career paths for teachers, integrated professional development for teachers and principals, evidence based performance evaluation processes tied to student achievement, and incentive awards based on measures of students academic growth, school improvements, and teaching and leadership competencies. This system will be augmented with recruitment and retention strategies and incentives that will address differences in student achievement and promote effective instructional practices. By revising and modifying existing systems and partnering with stakeholders, technology experts, and external evaluation contractors, the district is committed to developing a sustainability plan to ensure the PBCS system remains viable beyond the duration of the grant.

Applicant Name: Austin Independent School District
PR/Award #: S385A010111
State: TX

The Austin Independent School District (AISD) is applying for a federal Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant in order to expand its strategic compensation initiative, AISD REACH. This program, which has been piloted for the past three years, is aimed at recruiting, developing, and retaining high quality teachers and administrators in Austin, particularly at the district's high-needs schools. The theory of action behind AISD REACH is that incentive programs in education must couple supports and rewards to accelerate academic improvement. To this end, REACH rewards gains in student achievement at the campus, team, and individual teacher levels. Additionally, REACH provides full-time mentors to novice teachers who are most at risk of attrition. Mentoring also represents one of several leadership pathways in REACH that allows accomplished teachers to remain in the profession supporting the growth of their colleagues. The third component of REACH is targeted professional development in which teams of teachers collaborate to address a data-driven need on their campus, monitor the impact of their work, and present the results of their efforts to a juried panel of their peers. Finally, REACH targets incentives for teachers and administrators who choose to work in the district's most challenging campuses. Taken together, AISD believes that this program, which has already yielded positive results, builds the capacity of Austin educators to better serve students, empowers them to support the growth of their colleagues, and challenges them to reach rigorous performance goals aligned to the district's goal of preparing all students to be college and career ready. AISD's TIF proposal is specifically aimed at expanding AISD REACH, currently implemented at 15 schools, to include all schools in East Austin, an area composed of 33 high-needs schools, where staff attrition rates and academic underperformance have been historically high. Finally, AISD's TIF proposal has been developed in collaboration with teachers, administrators, the teachers' union, and the business community. To this end, this proposal is supported by Education Austin, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and legislators from Austin's state and federal delegations.

Applicant Name: Board of Education of Washington County
PR/Award #: S385A100080
State: MD

Washington County Public School's (WCPS) pilot TIF program, Performance Outcomes with Effective Rewards (POWER), will be designed to reward effective teachers and school-based administrators at high-need schools who raise levels of and maintain high standards for student achievement. WCPS plans to use the 2010-11 school year as a planning year to develop and implement a performance-based compensation system (PBCS) for teachers and administrators at five of our high-need schools in Washington County, Maryland, in order to increase educator effectiveness and student achievement as measured by student growth. The pilot schools were selected based on their identification as a high-need school with 50 percent or more of its enrollment from low-income families, based on eligibility for the Free and Reduced Meals Program (FARM).

Maryland plans to pilot and implement a PBCS over the next two years, so WCPS must align the POWER program with the State department of education plan and Maryland law. Program goals and outcomes include the following:

POWER Program Goals Short-term OutcomeIntermediate OutcomeLong-term Outcome
1) Increase teacher and administrator effectiveness, thereby improving student achievement, by offering extensive professional developmentDevelop a POWER professional development plan to address the specific needs of POWER teachers and administratorsProvide guidance, skills, and strategies to improve student learning and achievementDevelop, implement, and refine a comprehensive and sustainable teacher and administrator PBCS that uses a new evaluation system, resulting in improved student achievement at WCPS's high-need schools
2) Develop teacher and administrator performance-based compensation systems, so that teachers and administrators are rewarded for student growthDevelop a formula for providing monetary incentives based on pre- and post-assessment tools
3) Increase the number of effective teachers teaching low-income and disadvantaged students in high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjectsDevelop a staffing strategic plan designed to recruit and support effective teachers willing to work in high-need schools and in hard-to staff subjectsProvide pay incentives to teachers and administrators working and teaching in high-need schools and in hard-to staff subjectsAttract, develop, and retain high qualified effective teachers and administrators to improve student achievement in high need schools

Applicant Name: Butler County Board of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100075
State: AL

The Butler County Board of Education, a rural Alabama public school system, has successfully implemented a teacher incentive plan known as PayPLUS for two years. Butler County is the only district in Alabama to pilot and implement such a program at a district-wide scale with favorable results. As a result of the program, all schools have made student achievement gains. Additionally, the program has led to a decline in student discipline referrals, an improvement in teacher attendance, higher student participation in extracurricular activities, and an overall improvement in student satisfaction with school. Butler County will use the Teacher Incentive Fund to revitalize the PayPLUS program and expand it to address additional goals. All schools in the district are eligible to participate. The TIF-funded program will provide bonuses for the following:

  • Teacher and principal effectiveness, including National Board Certification designations;
  • Improvement of a school's AYP status, including recognition for the contributions of teachers and principals, as well as other personnel (e.g., bus drivers, school nurses, counselors) to student achievement gains;
  • Teachers' willingness to assume school leadership roles (e.g., department or grade-level chair, extracurricular activity sponsor, teacher mentor);
  • Perfect attendance; and
  • Contributions to the improvement of school culture.

To further support the district's goals, this proposed plan makes four $5,000 grants available to teachers who work collaboratively to improve their schools. Teams of teachers will be encouraged to create plans including the steps and benchmarks needed to attain personalized goals for their schools such as improving reading, math or attendance, or reducing discipline referrals for specific groups of students. In addition, Butler County will use the TIF grant to improve how teacher mentors are trained and to adjust school schedules to allow mentors to operate effectively and provide professional development.

Applicant Name: Center for Educational Innovation
PR/Award #: S385A100095
State: NY

The Center for Educational Innovation - Public Education Association (CEI-PEA) will partner with six high-need schools in Buffalo, New York, to undertake the Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools in Buffalo (PICCS-Buffalo) program. The consortium is comprised of six public charter schools with 274 teachers, serving 3,562 students. On average, the schools serve 89 percent free and reduced lunch eligible students. The average teacher turn-over rate is 32 percent and the average percentage of teachers with fewer than three years of experience is also 32 percent.

The project will help each school convert from a schedule-based compensation system to one that provides salary incentives for instructional administrators and staff based on their effectiveness in attaining student achievement targets. The project will also provide resources and support necessary to help instructional staff meet high student achievement targets.

PICCS-Buffalo is designed to address the unique challenges of implementing compensation reform and school improvement initiatives in urban charter schools. At the heart of the proposed project is the belief that the consortium must establish clear, fair and rigorous methodology for determining the "effectiveness" of all school staff eligible to receive performance-based compensation. As independent and autonomous charter school LEAs, each school will engage in a school-wide PBCP development process and establish its own PBCP. Each PBCP, however, will be based on and conform to parameters established in a consortium-wide framework developed collaboratively by CEI-PEA and representatives of each charter school, and it will be reviewed annually via a rigorous consortium-wide evaluation process that includes a rigorous verification of the implementation of each school's PBCP. In addition, each PBCP will provide for differentiated compensation at least at the individual teacher and administrator level and, at the school's discretion, at grade-level, cohort-level or other non-whole-school category-level.

PICCS-Buffalo will also establish a comprehensive data system to inform these targets and help gauge how well staff are meeting them throughout the school year. A variety of online resources that support professional development, collaboration, and peer review will be provided, as well as a comprehensive program of professional development designed to build capacity of teachers and principals in areas that are directly related to the performance measures and criteria for "effectiveness" of the PBCPs. In addition, professional development that builds ability to understand and use data will be emphasized. PICCS-Buffalo will help develop professional learning communities (PLCs) to design, implement and grow effective practices at all levels—classroom, school and network-wide. At each school, PICCS will provide training for teachers to become certified coaches capable of effectively facilitating PLCs.

Applicant Name: Center for Educational Innovation
PR/Award #: S385A100096
State: NY

The Center for Educational Innovation - Public Education Association (CEI-PEA) in partnership with seven high-need public charter schools in New York City is applying to the main TIF Competition for its proposed program: Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools in NYC (PICCS-NYC). The PICCS-NYC charter school consortium is composed of seven schools with 205 teachers, serving 2,422 students. On average, the schools serve 80 percent free and reduced lunch eligible students. The average teacher turn-over rate is 27 percent and the average percentage of teachers with fewer than three years of experience is 41 percent.

PICCS-NYC will enhance and expand performance-based compensation systems for school leaders, instructional administrators, teachers and instructional staff at participating schools. The project will support each consortium member school in converting its current salary schedule-based compensation system that provides limited or no performance-based incentives into a comprehensive performance-based compensation system (PBCS). The PBCS will compensate all instructional administrators and staff based on their effectiveness in attaining student achievement targets.

The project is also designed to provide resources and support to instructional staff necessary to help them meet high student achievement targets. PICCS-NYC will establish an integrated and comprehensive school improvement model that supports schools in creating and implementing PBCS's while also building their capacity for data-driven decision-making and reforming their process of staff evaluation, professional development and curriculum development initiatives. Within this framework, PICCS-NYC will help each consortium school establish school-specific strategies for implementing effective differentiated compensation initiatives focused on improvement of instruction and increased student achievement and growth.

Applicant Name: Chalkboard Project
PR/Award #: S385A100129
State: OR

The CLASS Project: Teachers & Principals is a consortium of the Chalkboard Project and 7 Oregon local education agencies (LEAs) (Bend- La Pine School District, Albany school district, Crook County School District, Lebanon Community Schools, Oregon City School District, Redmond School District, and Salem-Keizer Public Schools). This includes 67 high-need schools..

The project, the CLASS Project: Teachers & Principals, is founded on a year-long design phase carried out by each LEA member of the Consortium, as well as data collected from 100,000 Oregonians regarding their best ideas for improving education. The Consortium has been informed by best practices research and the stated needs of Oregon's students, teachers, and schools. Refined by convened stakeholders (teachers, principals, union leaders, and the broader school community) and a review of efforts in other states to increase teacher effectiveness, five initial components now form the integrated framework on which the CLASS performance based compensation systems are based. The collaborative nature of this locally driven, educator-led process means that some PBCS components may differ from one Consortium member to another, depending on their local educator workforce context and community need. However, all PBCSs developed and implemented as a part of CLASS Project: Teachers and Principals must meet the level of rigor called for in the goals and objectives of this TIF project.

In order to achieve the vision of the CLASS Project: Teachers & Principals, the Consortium has established the goal of aligning and integrating teacher and principal career paths, performance evaluations, professional development, improved data management systems, and compensation tied to student achievement. The project consists of these key components: 1) rigorous, transparent, and fair performance evaluation systems; 2) alternative/differentiated compensation structures; 3) job-embedded professional development systems; 4) expanded career paths; and 5) a preliminary analysis to guide the equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals. Once implemented, this integrated framework, will ensure that each Consortium member maximizes the skills, knowledge, and disposition of every teacher and principal in order to increase student achievement and ensure that Oregon students graduate and are prepared for college, career and life.

Applicant Name: Chicago Public Schools, District #299
PR/Award #: S385A100127
State: IL

The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) evaluation competition grant advances ongoing work by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to integrate a comprehensive performance based compensation system into its Human Capital Framework. The project will target 25 schools and principals along with 1,125 teachers.

The CPS TIF project's evolving core elements will be in place by the end of the planning year, including (a) a broad-based communications plan; (b) stakeholder involvement from groups including teachers, principals, the Chicago Teachers Union; (c) principal and teacher evaluation systems that use both performance and practice measures; (d) a data management system that links school and classroom student achievement to principals and teachers; and (e) a comprehensive professional development plan that differentiates training according to participants' roles and responsibilities.

The project also meets the following absolute and competitive preference priorities: (1) differentiated rewards of sufficient size based on levels of effectiveness, need of school and subject, and career ladder roles; (2) fiscal sustainability, including discussions with stakeholders regarding future funding; (3) strategies to strengthen the educator workforce during and beyond the grant period, including a focus on using evaluation ratings in promotion, tenure, dismissal, and career growth roles; (4) value-added measures of school and teacher impact on student growth related to the norm referenced Illinois State Assessment Tests and Scantron Adaptive Student Growth Assessments; and (5) improved recruitment and retention of effective teachers to serve high-need students and in hard-to-staff subjects and specialty areas.

A rigorous formative and summative assessment by internal and external evaluators will measure the impact of CPS TIF, and contribute to the transformation of principal and teacher compensation in CPS. The Chicago Public Education Fund is a major partner in this work.

Applicant Name: Colorado Springs School District 11
PR/Award #: S385A100085
State: CO

Colorado Springs School District 11 (CSSD11) proposes to implement a Performance-Based Compensation System (PBCS) that provides differentiated rewards to teachers and principals based on their effectiveness at improving student achievement, as measured by classroom observations and student growth data. A cohort of ten high-needs "pilot" schools will be the focus of this request. As part of a comprehensive approach to PBCS, CSSD11 will provide additional supports at these schools to increase teacher effectiveness, recruitment, and retention.

The goals of this project are to increase student achievement, increase the effectiveness of teachers and principals, and recruit and retain effective teachers and principals at the participating schools. CSSD11 will implement TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement to achieve these goals. The TAP System has more than ten years of proven experience in successfully implementing PBCS and embedded professional development in schools across the country.

Key components of the CSSD11 TIF program include: differentiated bonus awards based on classroom and school-level performance; continuous professional development and classroom support that is targeted to individual needs; and the opportunity for teachers to take on leadership roles within their buildings. CSSD11 will also provide tools and training to increase the use of classroom data in planning and delivering curriculum through this grant.

Applicant Name: Community Training and Assistance Center
PR/Award #: S385A100094
State: MA

The Prince William County Schools (PWCS), in partnership with Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC), is seeking the support of the Teacher Incentive Fund through the main TIF competition for the Teacher Incentive Performance Award (TIPA) initiative. TIPA provides a significant monetary award to teachers and principals in eligible schools that qualify to receive the performance-based compensation; integrates the performance-based compensation system with the new standards-based evaluation system, Professional Performance Process; provides professional development that focuses on individualized school and educator improvement; and builds on growth targets set in the division's recently adopted strategic plan for 2010-11 through 2014-15. It is truly a systemic reform.

The TIPA-award eligible schools are the 30 highest-needs schools in the division. The percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch subsidies ranges from 84.41% to 50.24%. TIPA rewards performance and improves performance. Student achievement and growth are key cornerstones for both the financial awards and the professional development support, which is customized to meet individual teacher and principal needs, as identified through the collaborative analysis of school, teacher, and student-specific achievement data. The year-long development process for TIPA is a national exemplar of broad-based partnership, engaging every constituency from the classroom to the board room.

TIPA has a rigorous evaluation component that will validate the initiative's impact, inform mid-course corrections, and provide a value-added framework that can be used by other school divisions in Virginia that seek to examine student growth using the state's Standards of Learning tests and improve workforce capacity through systemic reform.

Applicant Name: Community Training and Assistance Center
PR/Award #: S385A100110
State: MA

The Henrico County Public Schools, in partnership with Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC), is seeking the support of the Teacher Incentive Fund through the main TIF competition for the Learning Leaders Initiative (LEADERS). This project, created by a first-time TIF applicant, will pilot and sustain a performance-based staff development and differentiated compensation plan that provides teachers and principals in the district's highest-need schools with incentives directly tied to student achievement growth and effective classroom instruction.

LEADERS addresses Henrico School's Strategic Plan focus of ensuring all children have access to a quality education by supporting the recruitment, retention, and training of exceptional teachers and leaders who take the responsibility for creating engaging learning environments and increasing student achievement. The eight pilot schools, serving approximately 5,725 students, were selected based on high levels of poverty, low student achievement, and high teacher attrition rates in the core content areas of math, science and special education.

The specific goals of LEADERS are to: (1) build teacher and principal capacity to increase student achievement by aligning and improving implementation of teaching standards to ensure effective teaching; (2) develop district capacity to implement, scale-up, evaluate, and fiscally sustain a performance-based compensation system based on measurable impact as evidenced by a combination of direct and value-added measures of student achievement; and (3) retain a community of high-performing educators to drive academic achievement in the short and long-term. These goals will be accomplished through high quality professional development and evaluation focused on effective teaching, and measurement of student growth using both the State Standards of Learning tests and value-added growth assessments.

Applicant Name: Department of Education Ohio
PR/Award #: S385A100100
State: OH

The Ohio Teacher Incentive Fund (OTIF) is a key element in the state's commitment to create and sustain performance-based educator compensation systems (PBCSs). As a lever for change, OTIF will support statewide dialogue and reform as it offers extraordinary opportunities for diverse districts to develop and implement systems focused on increasing educator effectiveness and student achievement.

The application is a partnership between the Ohio Department of Education, schools statewide representing Ohio's large urban, rural Appalachian, small-to-medium independent districts, and Battelle for Kids, a non-profit partner and demonstrated leader in the fields of value-added analysis and performance-based compensation system reform. OTIF schools have a common vision for a PBCS that will:

  • Involve teachers, administrators, and union leaders in design and implementation;
  • Include a comprehensive communication plan around both requirements and outcomes;
  • Evaluate educators on effectiveness (student achievement and value-added impact) and on quality(comprehensive evaluation and regular observations);
  • Enhance compensation sufficiently to impact educator behaviors and decision-making;
  • Be supported by a robust data-management system;
  • Include professional development that improves performance and supports continued growth;
  • Be evaluated based on strong and measurable objectives; and,
  • Inform the work of others through the sharing of successful practices.
Previous TIF funding has provided Ohio with experience in the successful implementation of PBCSs that define and connect teacher and principal effectiveness with student growth in large urban settings. The participating schools and districts in this second round of TIF funding will address PBCS issues in additional urban schools, as well as in small town and rural schools across the state. The Appalachian Collaborative, in particular, is a ground-breaking regional effort to redesign evaluation systems in a specific context with student growth as a significant component - as well as engage in other comprehensive and well-defined transformational activities. Key elements of the statewide program include: 1) The implementation of PBCSs within a context of new State legislation, polices and widespread educational reforms, including implementation of new systems for teacher evaluation and licensure over the next few years; 2) Innovative methodology for differentiating effectiveness incentives, having learned from districts currently implementing varying models for performance-based compensation; 3) A focus on value-added analysis that allows schools and educators to measure the impact their curriculum, instruction, programs, and practices have on students' academic performances and to make data-based decisions for improvement; 4) Support for districts developing and piloting career ladders for teachers under Ohio's new system of teacher licensure which involves multiple levels from beginning, resident, professional, senior and lead teachers; 5) A focus on fiscal and program sustainability so that educators are assured that this is not a passing fad but represents an important part of human capital resource management and development in schools; 6) A consortium of urban, rural, and small- and medium-sized LEAs to support statewide implementation of effective PBCSs by recognizing how these systems must be adapted to local community needs; and 7) Broad collaboration for success including a state oversight group with representatives from ODE, BFK, and each of the participating district cohorts .

Applicant Name: Duval County Public Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100121
State: FL

Duval County Public Schools seeks to enhance its performance based compensation system (PBCS) through the Main Teacher Incentive Fund grant. The G.R.E.A.T (Gaining Rewards with Effective & Accountable Teachers) Expectations program will empower teachers and administrators to implement best practices that contribute to increases in academic achievement for all students. The program is guided by a series of core beliefs committed to raising student achievement, increasing graduation rates, and employing the best teachers and principals. By the end of the five-year program, G.R.E.A.T Expectations will include over 2,600 teachers and principals in 36 of the district's highest-need schools, effecting nearly 30,000 students.

The G.R.E.A.T. Expectations program includes the development and implementation of an integrated compensation system, a comprehensive professional development plan to increase student achievement based on the recruitment, development, and retention of high-quality teachers, and an integrated data management system that links student achievement data with human resource systems. G.R.E.A.T. EXPECTATIONS builds on the district's existing Merit Award Program (MAP) plan and includes additional bonuses to be awarded to G.R.E.A.T. school teachers who are also eligible under new TIF performance bonus criteria that will be finalized during the planning year. The new criteria, to include multiple categories including a rubric, classroom observations (2), pre- and post- test examinations, and value table points will bring better equity to performance criterion and the payment of these performance bonuses in high need schools. G.R.E.A.T. teachers could earn up to $6,300 per year for student performance gains with both incentives. As an alternative reward option, G.R.E.A.T. teachers can elect to have their earned performance bonuses paid to a team of teachers in established professional learning communities. Professional learning communities in G.R.E.A.T. schools can qualify for bonuses as a team (all or none qualify) that are ranked in the top 25 percent using student achievement gains, as evidenced by the same criteria as individual teachers. G.R.E.A.T. learning communities will have the capacity to earn up to $6,300 per teacher participant.

G.R.E.A.T. educators will be provided continuous professional learning opportunities on standards-based, results-driven, culturally relevant (urban schools) and improves administrative leadership, teaching quality, and student achievement. The professional learning communities' (PLCs) model, currently only operational in Duval County's elementary schools, will be piloted in the first cohort of six G.R.E.A.T. high schools. With PLCs, educators are less isolated and share in the collective responsibility for student success. An Urban Academy (with on-site and off-site support services) will be launched in G.R.E.A.T. schools during Year 2. Lead 360 is an instrument that Duval County Public Schools and the Schultz Center for Teaching & Leadership developed to assess individual growth and planning of individual professional development plans.

By identifying, rewarding, and supporting effective and accountable teachers and administrators, Duval County Public Schools can expect "G.R.E.A.T." results for its most challenged students and schools.

Applicant Name: 17 Forth Worth Independent School District
PR/Award #: S385A100138
State: TX

The Fort Worth Independent School District (Fort Worth ISD), serving 80,000 students in a minority, urban, high-poverty setting, proposes to enhance and expand the district-developed PEAK Rewards program for 15 high-need schools in the Fort Worth ISD. The purpose of the PEAK program is to reward teachers financially for their students' academic growth. PEAK encourages collaboration, cooperation and professional growth—not competition. It is consistent with the philosophy that teaching is a team sport, and that building leadership capacity in each school through developing teacher expertise will ultimately have the greatest impact on student achievement.

The PEAK Rewards model utilizes a value-added approach. Value-added analysis is a statistical method that helps educators measure the impact schools make on students' academic progress rates from year to year. Utilizing this information, teachers can observe students' progress, predict students' future academic performance and amend instruction practices to address all students' needs. The district can evaluate the impact of educational practices, classroom curriculum, instructional techniques and professional development, make data-driven decisions and identify and implement more effective programs for students.

In addition to supporting the PEAK Rewards model, the Teacher Incentive Fund grant will provide planning time and resources to assist the district in the development of a feedback component for teachers. Fort Worth ISD currently uses the Professional Development Assessment System (PDAS) to evaluate teachers every other year, and PDAS will remain one part of the feedback process. PDAS is the State's approved instrument for appraising teachers and identifying areas that would benefit from staff development. Cornerstones of the process include a minimum of one 45- minute observation and completion of the Teacher Self-Report form. PDAS includes 51 criteria within eight domains reflecting the Proficiencies for Learner-Centered Instruction adopted in 1997 by the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC).

The proposal is to incorporate an additional tool that will be used by multiple reviewers each year to provide teachers with immediate developmental feedback for their own targeted professional development. The tool or rubric will encompass competencies that all great teachers should possess as well as content specific competencies. At the end of each review, the reviewer will sit down with the teacher and provide immediate feedback, along with a personal development plan that provides the teacher his or her own professional development path to follow.

Teachers by nature thrive on growing and developing their skills. Constant positive developmental feedback and financial rewards will provide an incentive to come to and stay at high-needs schools. Additionally, these elements will encourage teachers and principals to constantly grow and evolve.

The high-need participant schools, all of which exceed 40% or more of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch rate, are: Dunbar HS, Eastern Hills HS, Polytechnic HS, South Hills HS, Diamond Hill-Jarvis HS, Dunbar 6th, Dunbar MS, Handley MS, Kirkpatrick MS, Meadowbrook MS, Como ES, Morningside ES, Oaklawn ES, Sunrise-McMillian ES and Turner ES.

Applicant Name: Galveston Independent School District
PR/Award #: S385A100133
State: TX

Through support from the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program, Galveston Independent School District (GISD), a designated Texas high-need LEA, will develop and implement a performance based teacher compensation system (PBCS). After the devastation of Hurricane Ike, GISD views the implementation of a comprehensive PBCS as a critical, key element in recruiting and retaining teachers in the district. The PBCS will support the training of 436 teachers and 54 administrators and will impact the education of over 6,300 students. Within GISD, seventy-four percent of students are from minority backgrounds, 77% are economically disadvantaged, and the homeless student population totals 2,000.

GISD's PBCS will use increases in student achievement as the primary means to determine teacher and principal effectiveness and use this information to establish a more equitable system of compensation for teachers and principals. Teachers and principals will be reviewed through rigorous evaluation systems that include a value-added analysis of student gains. GISD will also foster student-embedded professional development that emphasizes student work and is incorporated into a comprehensive schedule for teachers' professional development. The district hopes to utilize the PBCS to encourage leadership among educators by sponsoring a Leadership Development Academy and organizing additional leadership opportunities. GISD feels that the changes implemented through the PBCS can be the intervention that ensures students receive high quality instruction to prepare them for a challenging world and a community intervention that will allow Galveston to move toward recovery.

Applicant Name: Guilford County Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100071
State: NC

Guilford County Schools (GCS) proposes, under the TIF evaluation competition, to fund the Mission Possible Expansion Project. Building upon the success of its 30 current Mission Possible Program schools, GCS intends to expand interventions and supports to 10 additional high-need schools. Each of these high-need schools has a trend of high teacher turnover, and low student performance as measured using value-added growth models and the North Carolina performance composite score. The 10 proposed expansion schools, consisting of a high percentage of students who are economically and academically disadvantaged, are in great need of federal assistance in order to increase educator effectiveness and student growth.

By 2015, the project proposes that all Mission Possible Expansion faculty will be effective as measured by the NC Evaluation Process. Accordingly, the project plans for an increasing percentage of faculty to receive performance incentives based upon student achievement gains over the course of the grant. The Mission Possible Expansion Project plans to achieve these goals through recruiting, retaining, and rewarding effective educators.

Specifically, strategies to ensure 100 percent educator effectiveness is attained include: (1) performance-based accountability that relies on multiple measures of teacher and principal effectiveness, including student growth and classroom observation; (2) recruitment bonuses for teachers who work in the target schools and in hard-to-staff positions; (3) need-targeted professional development to increase the success of teachers and principals; (4) career paths, with financial incentives, that recognize the importance of teaching excellence an d instructional leadership in raising student achievement; (5) individual performance-based compensation based upon value-added data measures of student growth; (6) and, school-wide performance-based compensation based upon North Carolina's ABC student growth model. All grant funds and efforts will be directed at increasing educator effectiveness and student growth in high-need schools.

Applicant Name: Hillsborough County Public Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100139
State: FL

Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) Performance Outcomes with Effective Rewards II (POWER II) proposal is part of an aggressive district-wide multi-year plan aimed to attract, support, reward, and retain the most effective teachers and administrators, especially at high needs schools. Building on POWER I (previous TIF grant), POWER II seeks to expand the current successful performance based compensation system to 35 schools. Hillsborough will utilize valid, reliable and multi-level value-added student achievement measures to determine teacher and administrator effectiveness. The use of other measures, such as evidence of leadership roles, will be utilized to increase the effectiveness of other teachers in the school. The project will also provide a high quality professional development component that is directly linked to measures of teacher and principal effectiveness.

Under POWER II, the effectiveness of teachers and administrators will be calculated through a combination of evaluations and student achievement. The assessment of student achievement will move from a one-year growth model that utilizes value tables to a three year value-added growth model utilizing multilevel modeling techniques. The overall performance calculation will place teachers and administrators in one of five performance levels. Highly effective POWER II teachers and administrators will earn a performance award based on a demonstrated performance level of 4 or 5.

In POWER II, highly effective teachers and administrators can earn a bonus of up to 5% of a beginning teacher's salary, in addition to bonuses from other programs funded by the state and HCPS for which they qualify. They will also participate in prescriptive staff development that is directly linked to individual evaluation results. POWER II also includes enhanced recruitment and retention and a multi-audience communication plan. Year 1 of POWER II will be utilized as a Planning Year in order to field test new evaluation instruments, define the effectiveness calculation score for each level, and design and implement the value-added measures.

Applicant Name: Hogan Preparatory Academy, Inc.
PR/Award #: S385A100141
State: MO

Hogan Preparatory Academy (HPA) is a charter high school in Kansas City, Missouri that was organized in the 1999-2000 school year and became a local education agency in 2005. Approximately 75 percent of the HPA's students are economically disadvantaged. HPA employs approximately 30 teachers and one principal. The main goals of HPA's performance-based compensation system (PBCS), Rewarding Excellence, are: increasing the overall school and teacher effectiveness, increasing the percentage of effective teachers, and increasing the retention and recruitment of effective teachers. Teachers, principals, and other school personnel are included in HPA's PBCS. The PBCS system has a maximum incentive compensation level of 20 percent of the employee's annual salary. Incentive compensation will be based primarily on student growth factors, when possible. Additional components of the award system include content area performance across the school, grade level performance across all content areas, and overall school performance. Professional development is an important component of HPA's project. The stated purpose of the Professional Development Plan for Hogan Preparatory Academy is "to help teachers refine the knowledge and skills needed to improve student performance and achievement, provide highly qualified teaching skills, analyze data and implement best practices when approaching different learners and learning styles, and to show evidence of the professional augmentation and modification to meet the needs of all students to carry out the mission of the school." HPA will ensure that the staff development improves the learning of all students by using disaggregated student data to determine adult learning priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain continuous improvement. The PBCS will also include recruitment bonuses to recruit effective teachers for hard-to staff areas of math, science and special education and stipends for teachers who take on grade-level team or academic department leadership roles.

Applicant Name: Houston Independent School District
PR/Award #: S385A100140
State: TX

The Houston Independent School District (HISD)'s Project ASPIRE (Accelerating Student Progress. Increasing Results & Expectations) is a performance-based compensation system for teachers that focuses on teacher effectiveness and growth in student learning at both the campus and individual-teacher levels. HISD has identified 130 high-needs eligible campuses, all with a 50% or higher economically disadvantaged rate, for inclusion in the main competition of the Teacher Incentive Fund program. In addressing the identified campuses' needs, Project ASPIRE proposes to reach the following goals:

Goal 1: Increase teacher and principal effectiveness and thereby improve student achievement;
Goal 2: Reform teacher and principal appraisal and compensation systems so that teachers and principals are rewarded for increased in student achievement;
Goal 3: Increase teacher and principal effectiveness;
Goal 4: Increase the number of effective teachers teaching poor, minority, and disadvantaged students in hard-to-staff subjects such as mathematics and science;
Goal 5: Create a sustainable performance-based compensation system.

Project ASPIRE is designed to award differentiated compensation to instructional staff based on student growth and achievement data. HISD will contract with Dr. William Sanders' nationally renowned group SAS® EVAAS® in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation of student improvement using value-added analysis. SAS EVAAS uses a multivariate, mixed model statistical methodology to analyze a longitudinal data set of student achievement test scores. The maximum teacher award for the performance-based compensation system (PBCS) will be $10,300. The maximum award for principals will be $15,530. Assistant Principals have an opportunity to receive up to $7,765. Other proposed strategies of Project ASPIRE to transform HISD's human capital systems include: strengthening recruiting and staffing policies/practices; establishing a new teacher appraisal system; providing effective individualized support and professional development for teachers; and offering career pathways and differentiated compensation to retain and leverage the most effective teachers.

Applicant Name: Iberville Parish School District
PR/Award #: S385A100124
State: LA

Iberville Parish Schools (IPS) is collaborating with Advance Innovative Education (AIE) and the Louisiana State TAP™ Office, housed in the Louisiana Department of Education (LATAP) to undertake a district-wide implementation of TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement. The project, is entitled BOOSTER: Balanced, Objective, Observable, Specific, Timely, Enhancing, and Rigorous, is a coherent and integrated strategy that utilizes TAP™ strategies and tools, while adding communications and outreach components necessary to the success of TAP™, and tailored to the specific needs of the individuals who learn, teach, and work in Iberville parish. BOOSTER will serve all teachers assistant principals, and principals in all schools in the district.

IPS will implement TAP™, a comprehensive school reform system that provides powerful opportunities for career advancement, professional growth, instructionally focused accountability, and competitive compensation for educators (based on performance as measured by student growth). The BOOSTER implementation of TAP™ will use a value-added measure of the impact on student growth as a significant factor in calculating differentiated levels of compensation provided to teachers and principals. Additionally, IPS will be participating in a state pilot program to implement value added assessments statewide and has a plan to clearly explain the chosen value-added model to teachers to enable them to use the data generated through the model to improve classroom practices The new method will rely on local observations as in the past, but these will now count for only 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation. The other 50 percent of the evaluation will be based on student achievement gains.

Through BOOSTER, IPS' goals are to change personnel deployment practices in an effort to improve teacher effectiveness; transform teacher and principal compensation to a Performance Based Compensation System; increase number of highly qualified and effective teachers in the district; and dramatically improve student achievement in ten high-need schools.

Applicant Name: Indiana Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100108
State: IN

As part of statewide education reform agenda, IDOE will partner with TAP, the System for Teacher and Student Advancement, to implement a performance based compensation system to increase educator effectiveness, improve student achievement, and close achievement gaps in high-need schools. IDOE's grant includes 46 high-need schools in 11 districts. These schools represent a wide variety of models, including traditional high schools, alternative schools, charter schools, and neighborhood-based K-12 schools located in some of the state's most economically deprived inner-city neighborhoods, as well as in small towns in rural areas of the state. These schools have lower student achievement than comparable schools and have trouble recruiting and retaining high-qualified and effective educators, especially in hard-to-staff subjects.

TAP's approach incorporates four interrelated elements: (1) Multiple career paths provide powerful career growth opportunities through new roles and responsibilities and corresponding growth in pay for teachers and principals, (2) Ongoing applied professional growth provides continuous, job-embedded development focused on specific student and teacher needs, (3) Instructionally focused accountability occurs through a fair, transparent, research based evaluation system that utilizes multiple measures and rigorously differentiates teachers across levels of ineffective, fair, effective, and highly-effective, and (4) Performance-based compensation that allows teachers and principals the opportunity to earn performance bonuses based on instructional performance and student growth. The PBCS's multifaceted and coherent approach will also ensure the support of teachers, include utilize a data-management system, and contract with an outside provider to evaluate the measured performance objectives laid out in the grant application.

Teachers would also be eligible for bonuses based on the growth of students in their individual classrooms and on the results of their multiple classroom evaluations. For teachers in tested subjects and grades, Indiana's TAP system would require 50% of annual teacher bonuses based on classroom evaluation results, 30% based on classroom student achievement growth and 20% based on school-wide growth. Teachers in untested subjects and grades would have their bonuses determined based on the following: 50% on their evaluations and 50% on school-wide growth or a voluntary association with a partner grade or subject. Principal compensation for TAP schools will replicate payout percentages for teachers. Schools will calculate principal compensation with the following ?50-30-20 model: 50% based on school-wide student growth scores; 30% based on a valid and reliable 360-degree survey; and 20% based on the TAP Leadership Team Rubric.

Applicant Name: Jefferson County Public School District R-1
PR/Award #: S385A100084
State: CO

Jefferson County Public Schools (Jeffco) submitted an application for $22,615,775 to the Teacher Incentive Fund's (TIF) evaluation grant competition, in support of its Jeffco Strategic Compensation (JSC) plan. This innovative plan makes differentiated teacher and principal compensation, promotion, and retention decisions on the basis of demonstrated effectiveness in achieving student learning growth (Priority 1). The JSC will rely on multiple measures, including results from the Colorado Growth Model and locally-developed value-added models (Priority 4) and a rigorous new evaluation system that balances individual, team and school-level measures of effective teaching and leadership. JSC goes beyond simple bonus structures. Under the plan, the grantee will reconfigure the Jeffco salary schedule into a nine-level system that rewards teachers both for student growth and their own leadership in spreading their teaching expertise. Peer and administrator observations will lead not only human capital decision-making, but professional development plans that will serve to grow teacher leadership capacity and human capital in the district, particularly in the highest-need schools that will serve as pilot sites (Priorities 3 and 5). This plan is the result of a two-year study and planning process on behalf of Jeffco, the Jefferson County Education Association, and their partners. This district-union partnership, which has received promising state and foundation financial support to date, suggests that Jeffco has the capacity to implement comprehensive reforms and evaluation successfully. These factors indicate that this grantee is well-positioned to sustain, and potentially scale-up district wide, the proposed JSC plan (Priority 2). This program will also inform meaningful professional development aligned to teachers' strengths and challenges identified based on student achievement data and individual observations. Job-embedded professional development will also support teachers and leaders in moving into differentiated roles. In this way, excellent teachers will not only be compensated more appropriately, they will also take on mentor and master teacher roles, serving to support their professional colleagues with observations, lesson-modeling, and co-teaching.

Applicant Name: Kansas City Missouri School District
PR/Award #: S385A100132
State: MO

The Kansas City, Missouri School District PIONEER (Pay Incentives based On Need for Excellent Education Reform) program is a pay-for performance program awarding eligible teachers and principals with differential compensation based on a combination of measurable outputs (primarily for student performance) and observed principal/teacher performance while effectively supporting and developing educators. Measurable student performance outcomes in the Kansas City, Missouri School District aim to capture student learning attributable to a teacher or school, and are derived from scores on the Missouri Assessment Program (State Testing Program) as well as other assessments used to determine significant gains in student performance. The PIONEER Program reflects: Professional Development, Teacher Assignment to High-Need Schools, Wraparound factors, Professional Evaluation, Individual Teacher/Principal Performance, Teacher Leadership, and School/Group.

The Kansas City Board of Education recruited a superintendent trained by the Broad Foundation who has the ability and the mandate to turn the school system around. He has started the "Transformation" process to overhaul the school system. His actions are designed to correct a history of failed efforts to address problems caused by the $50 million annual deficit and the high professional teacher and administrative turnover rate. Transformation starts with the closing of 26 out of 61 of the district's inner city district schools, and the elimination of more than 300 teachers and 400 support staff positions.

There are several factors that the PIONEER project will consider when selecting the 10 schools that will participate in the project each year. Schools with the highest weighted total scores based on student eligibility for free-and-reduced price lunches, school enrollment, Missouri Assessment scores and the numbers of language deficient LLP students are ranked highest in the elementary or secondary school category. Thus such a composite score will encourage high quality teachers elect to teach in schools that need them the most. Faculties in the schools with the highest "score" on need will be invited to participate in the PIONEER pay incentive project each year. If 75% of the faculty assigned to such schools agree to participate, that school will be part of the project. If a school declines, the faculty at the next school on the list will be invited to participate and so on until ten schools have agreed.

Kansas City Missouri School District's PIONEER Program will provide the basis for compensation using a multi-faceted approach. The individual pay component will emphasize the acquisition of knowledge and the individual's understanding and demonstration of applied skills. PIONEER relies on an evaluation system that not only discriminates between proficient and unsatisfactory performance, but it identifies and rewards outstanding teachers and principals based upon student performance outcomes.

The elements of the plan are based on the use of three components: Student Growth - schoolwide and individual growth as measured by a value-added growth model; Professional Growth - participation in training which manifests itself on a regular basis in classroom practices and advanced certification in their field; and Wraparound factors including such elements as: attendance (both teacher and student), discipline, and parent involvement. Formal observations will be carried out at least four times per year and informal observations will be carried out on a regular basis via an electronic walkthrough tool - the "Observation 360" which provides real-time feedback to teachers. Training will be provided to ensure a high degree of inter-rater reliability.

The PIONEER pay structure will support administrators in their role of evaluating the professional staff and rewarding them appropriately. Educator evaluations will also be integrated into the ongoing professional development efforts of coaches, master teachers, and mentor teachers. To ensure that professional development is job-embedded, the plan includes scheduling school-based collaborative professional development during the work day. It also encourages teachers who have become experts at their practice to mentor other teachers in their professional learning community. Through this comprehensive approach to educator compensation, professional development, career opportunities the plan will dramatically transform the way educators receive pay and support.

Applicant Name: Louisiana Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100109
State: LA

The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) is applying to the Teacher Incentive Fund under the main competition. LDOE will partner with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, an independent 501(c)(3) public charity, and eight Louisiana local educational agencies: Ascension Parish, Desoto Parish, Jefferson Parish, Pointe Coupee Parish, St. Helena Parish, St. Mary Parish, Tangipahoa Parish, and West Baton Rouge Parish. This partnership is requesting a TIF grant of $49,094,792 over five years for the implementation of a performance-based compensation system (PBCS), TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement. TAP will be implemented in 70 high-need partner LEA schools, impacting over 2,800 educators and 33,500 students. The goals of TAP is to - (1) Increase the percent of effective educators in LEA partner schools, (2) Build the capacity of the partner LEAs to implement and sustain a performance-based compensation system for teachers and principals; and, (3) Increase student achievement in the partner LEAs will be achieved through implementation of TAP.

Louisiana's PBCS includes a significant differentiated compensation plan, aligned with the state's approach to reform and reliant upon value-added measures of student achievement. It is targeted to serve the highest need students through the recruitment and retention of effective teachers, strong evaluation systems, and high quality professional development. The intent of the project is to increase teacher effectiveness, thereby closing student achievement gaps and improving the educational experience for all students. It is designed to be self-sustaining—Louisiana is approaching this PCBS expansion with the goal of modeling a district-sustainable TAP system that is supported by non-TIF funds, so that beyond the period of the grant, reforms in teacher quality will continue.

Applicant Name: Lowndes County Public Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100119
State: AL

The proposed Lowndes County Teacher Incentive Program (LCTIP) will serve seven schools in the Black Belt region of Central Alabama. The seven schools serve 2,189 students in the elementary and secondary grades, ninety-seven percent of whom are African American and ninety-six percent of whom are eligible for free and reduced priced lunch.

The LCTIP program is designed to prepare and reward the schools' 167 K - 12 teachers and principals in the Lowndes County School System for excellence in teaching as measured by student outcome data and factors related to increasing student performance. The goal of the proposed program is to further develop the pedagogical skills and content knowledge of the teachers of the Lowndes County School System, AL and provide additional incentives for the teachers and principals to provide the level of instruction necessary to bring the student performance up to the national average.

To support LCTIP, the Lowndes County Board of Education has committed to "providing evidence-based practices that incorporate (a) a process for universal screening, (b) ongoing progress monitoring that drives instruction at the student level and monitors instructional implementation, (c) an explicit district-level, school-level, and student-level action plan, (e) time for data analysis, evaluation and use, (f) multi-tiered differentiated interventions, and (g) a flexible, data-responsive system of implementation. The development of a culture with effective instructional practices will be created and supported by decision-making that is transparent and on evidence-based measures of student achievement."

Under LCTIP, teachers in K-12 classrooms will be eligible for incentives based on rubric of school and classroom achievement as well participation in professional development activities, leadership activities, classroom observations through the district's Professional Education Personnel Evaluation program and credentials. Principals of the seven schools will be eligible for a proportionate amount of monetary incentives based on the percentage of increase in student outcome data for their school and meeting district goals for graduation rate. Elementary level teachers will meet twice monthly in one of seven Communities of Practice and secondary levels will be assigned to a Community of Practice for each subject area. Each Community of Practice have a master teacher as a mentor/consultant. Individual teachers will also work with online master teachers. As highly successful teachers are identified through LCTIP, Model Classrooms will be established across the district.

Applicant Name: Lucia Mar Unified School District
PR/Award #: S385A100097
State: CA

The Lucia Mar TAP Project is an incentive program that is designed to increase student achievement, educator effectiveness, and teacher and principal recruitment and retention. By implementing the comprehensive TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) model, the project will align a teacher and principal performance based compensation system (PBCS) with evaluation, staff development, and new career paths. This grant will serve nearly 11,000 students by focusing on six of the district's high-needs schools where up to 91 percent of students qualify for free and reduced price lunch, up to 57 percent are English learners, and more than 50 percent are minority students. Lucia Mar Unified, a rural school district in California, will partner with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching to implement an accountability system for teachers and principals that includes: a clear definition of effective instruction; comprehensive professional development that is explicitly connected to effective instruction; multiple career paths that provide teachers career growth via new roles and responsibilities; and frequent, relevant evaluations. A PBCS with incentives that average over 5 percent of base pay will be based on this instructionally focused accountability system. Incentives will be based on value-added student assessment scores and on objective, rigorous evaluations using the TAP Skills, Knowledge, and Responsibilities Performance Standards. A communication plan is in place and union leaders and teachers and principals from every site have endorsed the project. A data-management system that links student achievement, human resources, and payroll is planned, as is professional development and staff education about the evaluation measures.

Applicant Name: Maricopa County Education Service Agency
PR/Award #: S385A100076
State: AZ

Rewarding Excellence in Instruction and Leadership (REIL) will create a systemic K-12 performance-based compensation system (PBCS) that transforms how six Alliance Districts recruit, retain, support, and compensate effective teachers and principals in high-need schools. The REIL project aims to: (1) ensure all students in partner districts graduate college- and career-ready by increasing student achievement and growth in all content areas, (2) enhance careers for teachers and principals by implementing a fiscally sustainable PBCS, and (3) develop talent in teacher and leading through a comprehensive program of performance-based evaluation and support. This project will serve six Maricopa County Schools Districts, representing 174 principals and assistant principals, 3,380 teachers, and more than 52,000 students. REIL will realize its goals by ensuring that the Right Team has the Right Tools to identify the Right Talent resulting in REIL Change for students in the highest needs schools throughout Maricopa County. As part of the program, the Performance-Based Compensation system will include: (1) differential compensation based on multiple measures, including a value-added calculation; (2) individual, team, and school awards; and (3) salary augmentation via career pathways and hard-to-staff assignments. Teachers and principals will have a clear understanding of what is expected, and they will receive ongoing information from certified evaluators about how effectively they are performing relative to these expectations. Districts will revise their retention and tenure policies to reflect use of data from multiple sources. Professional Development, will provide all teachers and principals with the job-embedded support they need to become effective, improve effectiveness, or explore additional career pathways. Guided by Professional Growth Plans, the professional development component will allow all program participants to understand the components of the PBCS, use data from the data management system to inform instruction, and receive targeted professional development based on needs identified through the evaluation process. Professional Growth Plans will be reviewed annually to determine site- and teacher- specific, as well as principal specific job-embedded professional development options. Teachers and principals will receive clear, written midyear indictors that show current progress toward goals. Non-negotiable aspects of this component will be: (1) delivery of specific instructional/leadership feedback to teachers and principals; (2) use of evaluation data to determine professional development; and (3) analysis and use of data to inform practice.

Applicant Name: Massachusetts Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100151
State: MA

Massachusetts aMAzing educators - Project Abstract (Main Competition). The aMAzing educators TIF grant will support and accelerate Massachusetts' ability to attract, support, evaluate, reward and retain effective educators in 22 low-performing "turnaround" schools in Boston and Springfield. Lessons learned from the work in these 22 TIF schools will be scaled to support Massachusetts' framework for performance-based compensation in other schools within the districts and across the state. Concentrating effective instruction, additional supports and performance-based compensation for educators in our lowest performing schools will create the conditions needed to significantly improve student achievement and close the persistent and unacceptable achievement gaps. By introducing trends in student growth as a significant factor in the teacher and principal evaluation processes and by providing new opportunities for career advancement based on performance evaluation, we will transform the career continuum for both teachers and principals, improve the quality of teaching each student receives, and more equitably distribute the expertise of effective teachers.

The aMAzing educators initiative is an aligned, systemic approach to support and strengthen instruction in turnaround schools in our two largest urban districts and, eventually, across the state. Massachusetts' performance-based compensation system (PBCS) connects key initiatives, linking landmark efforts in school turnaround, teacher and principal evaluation using quality assessments and Massachusetts' growth model, and targeted professional development - all leading to improved results for children in high need schools. Our comprehensive strategy will:

  • Recruit and select effective teachers and principals to work in turnaround schools through monetary and non-monetary incentives such as the opportunity to work in teams with other effective teachers and for an outstanding principal who values and supports teachers as leaders;
  • Support educators in the turnaround schools with high-quality job-embedded and targeted professional development, real-time access to student assessment data and coaching on how to use that data to inform and improve instruction, as well as ensure that teachers have sufficient time for collaboration and planning;
  • Evaluate educators under a new evaluation system which uses three rating categories based on student growth as a significant factor and includes annual evaluations, multiple observations during the year, and links to key personnel decisions such as tenure, promotion and dismissal;
  • Reward groups of teachers for excellent performance based on student achievement of a school in a way that fosters the collegiality, teamwork and collaboration that is so critical to the success of a school turnaround;
  • Develop teacher leaders to strengthen teaching quality across the school by providing meaningful leadership roles and differentiated pay to teachers selected based on performance evaluations which establish their effectiveness with students; and
  • Retain the most effective teachers by providing additional compensation to teachers who are selected based on performance evaluation and who commit to remain in the school for two more years and operate "model classrooms" that build the instructional capacity of the school.
Teachers who have demonstrated their effectiveness with students can earn differentiated compensation in the form of group and individual performance awards of over $14,000 (or 18%) in Boston and $15,000 (or 28%) in Springfield. Effective principals will be able to earn $15,000 - $20,000 (13% - 18%) in Boston and up to $18,530 (17%) in Springfield in additional annual compensation based on student growth in their school.

Applicant Name: Mastery Charter High School
PR/Award #: S385A100102
State: PA

Mastery Charter School is a college preparatory K-12 charter school network serving predominantly low-income (80%), minority students (95%) in the high-crime urban communities of Philadelphia. The Mastery Charter School TIF grant will support the expansion of Mastery's Performance Based Compensation System (PBCS) and implement a new PBCS for more than 700 teachers and 150 leadership staff (principals, assistant principals, deans) in four existing Mastery schools and 15 new schools.

Mastery's Performance Based Compensation System (PBCS) is structured around four tiers: (1) Clear instructional/Management standards broken into five categories of fundamental best teaching practices that Mastery believes lead to teaching excellence and student achievement, (2) Aligned Support and Supervision through principal and teacher coaches training in the Instructional Standards and a common rubric for excellence in each area, (3) Student Outcomes as the central, driving force for the entire PBSC, and (4) Pay and Promotion of teachers and administrators based on their ability to improve as professionals and to deliver academic results for students. The program will also include a Mastery Value Added System real-time tool for predicting and measuring individual student achievement growth at the classroom level; expansion of professional development and new teacher coaching initiatives; and a comprehensive system for evaluating and developing school leaders linked to school-wide student achievement outcomes.

Applicant Name: McMinnville School District 40
PR/Award #: S385A100067
State: OR

McMinnville School District's Investing in Effective Educators (IEE) Project, being submitted to the main TIF competition, will implement a performance-based compensation system, combined with sustained and job-embedded professional development, to improve student achievement by increasing the effectiveness of teachers and principals.

Our IEE project design includes a differentiated compensation system with four performance domains by which to evaluate educator effectiveness:

  • Student achievement on statewide assessments;
  • Value-added methods of measuring academic growth and achievement over time;
  • Leadership and additional duties;
  • Observation-based assessment.
In addition to performance-based compensation, the project provides incentive for effective teachers to continue to develop their practice by creating a career path that can lead to "Master" and "Mentor" status in which teachers take on instructional coaching and other leadership roles.

Our IEE Project is designed for sustainability, combining TIF funds with District funds to provide performance-based compensation, while investing heavily in intense and sustained professional development to create a cohort of highly effective teachers and principals. Educators will receive personalized coaching based on observations and student data. In addition, they will collaborate in weekly on-site professional development embedded into the work schedule and will receive support both on instruction and on data interpretation. Further, the project will maximize the investment of every teacher and principal in every child's success, promote individual and shared accountability for student achievement, encourage highly effective teachers to share with, model, and coach less effective teachers, and foster a school culture and climate of collaboration and collegiality.

Applicant Name: Memphis City Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100144
State: TN

Memphis City Schools' (MCS) TIF3 "In the Zone" project will develop a performance based compensation system (PBCS) that will provide group incentives and individual stipends as part of a comprehensive approach to improving the effectiveness of teachers, principals and other personnel in the district's 28 lowest performing schools.

The TIF3 project will serve MCS' most fragile schools, specifically the five schools currently in the State's Achievement School District (ASD) because of persistently low graduation rates and/or persistent failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and the three schools eligible for transition to ASD, as well as the 20 other MCS schools which are in School Improvement, Corrective Action or Restructuring because of failure to make AYP. This proposal has been nicknamed "In the Zone" to emphasize the project's focus on these 28 schools under special management in the district's Striving School Zone (SSZ). While this project will leverage existing TIF efforts in the State, none of the involved schools are served by the district's current TIF/Effective Practices Incentive Community (EPIC) project. The plan includes incentives for teachers and principals based on differentiated performance as well as more incentives for other personnel.

Given that this district's progress in recruiting highly qualified educators, the "In the Zone" comprehensive strategy focuses on induction and retention of highly effective teachers and principals. The first year of "In the Zone" awards will coincide with the roll out of a four-element value-added individualized effectiveness measure: the Teacher Effectiveness Measure (TEM). Using the TEM as a centerpiece, "In the Zone's" incentive compensation plan will benefit from current investment from State and local stakeholders. Recent policy changes in MCS related to teacher and leadership effectiveness, internal accountability, data dashboards, and education staff professional development will harmonize with recent Tennessee State education related statutory changes to create the appropriate context within which to implement human capital reform.

Applicant Name: Michigan Association of Public School Academies
PR/Award #: S385A100091
State: MI

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA), in partnership with 20 public school academies serving K-12 students in Detroit, Michigan, will develop a performance-based compensation system (PBCS) called TEAMS (Teacher Excellence & Academic Milestones for Students). Eight of the nine participating schools serve K - 8 student populations and one school serves a 9-12 student population. In all of the schools served by the project, between 74% and 91% of the students quality for free and reduced priced lunch.

The TEAMS model, to support increased teacher effectiveness and student achievement is reflective of Michigan's statewide initiative to incentivize teaching through legislation passed in 2009. MAPSA's PBCS will base teacher and school leader effectiveness primarily on meeting growth targets that will be established annually at individual school sites for both individual classroom teachers and the SAW (school as a whole). The remaining 20% of possible differentiated pay rests on third party observation-based assessments of teacher performance conducted two to three times per year. Additional components of MAPSA's PBCS include supporting teachers and principals through a comprehensive Professional Learning Community model (PLC) that allows for school-specific professional development content in addition to an integrated performance management system that will assist schools in all aspects of operations and decision-making. The PBCS will also provide compensation to encourage additional leadership roles with the goal of filling all available leadership roles.

Applicant Name: Milwaukee Public Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100074
State: WI

Milwaukee Public Schools is applying for the main Teacher Incentive Fund competition. The project Support and Rewards for Teacher Effectiveness: a Pilot in Milwaukee will improve student achievement by increasing teacher and principal effectiveness. The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAPTM) will support the implementation of a performance based compensation system that rewards teachers and principals for increases in student achievement in 16 high need schools. The TAPTM system is comprised of four interrelated elements: multiple career paths, ongoing applied professional growth, instructionally focused accountability, and performance based compensation. The career ladder allows for career teachers to become mentor and master teachers without leaving the classroom. Mentor and master teachers provide data driven job embedded professional growth opportunities and receive additional compensation based on their added roles and responsibilities. To facilitate the effectiveness of the complete system, the principal of a TAPTM school must be knowledgeable about the TAPTM process to advance student achievement. The project goal and objectives are:

Goal: Develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in 16 high-need schools. Objective 1: Improve student achievement by increasing teacher and principal effectiveness. Objective 2: Reform teacher and principal compensation systems so that teachers and principals are rewarded for increases in student achievement. Objective 3: Increase the number of effective teachers teaching poor, minority, and disadvantaged students in hard to staff subject areas. Objective 4: Create a sustainable performance-based compensation system.

Applicant Name: Mississippi Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100130
State: MS

The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is applying for the main TIF competition grant. New Direction is a pilot program designed to develop and implement a performance-based compensation system (PBCS); the proposal includes a planning period to ensure an effective, sustainable, transparent system. The comprehensive, integrated system will focus on five components: 1) a PBCS, 2) educator evaluation, 3) professional development, 4) career ladders for teachers, and 5) data systems. MDE selected 10 schools in 8 districts located in diverse geographical areas that meet the criteria for high-need schools and high-needs students as defined in the application. A logic model, the local evaluation instrument, will produce both quantitative and qualitative data and ensure project feedback and continuous improvement through context, input, process, and product evaluation.

The goal of New Direction is to improve student achievement in high-need schools and increase the number of effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects through a comprehensive, integrated strategy to recruit and retain effective teachers and principals in those schools defined by low student achievement and high concentrations of minority and economically disadvantaged students.

Objective 1: Develop and implement a sustainable statewide performance-based differentiated compensation system for teachers and principals based on multiple measures of effective practice in 10 high-need schools by July 1, 2011.
Objective 2: Increase high-need student achievement by at least 10% in each year of the grant (2010-2015) as measured by the Quality of Distribution Index and Growth Model calculated by the MS Statewide Accountability System.
Objective 3: Increase the number of effective teachers and principals in high-need schools by 10% in each year of the grant (2010-2015) as measured by the evaluation and student growth data components of the PBCS.
Objective 4: Increase the number of effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects in high-need schools by 10% in each year of the grant (2010-2015) as measured by the evaluation component of the PBCS and relevant Mississippi Student Information System (MSIS) data.

Applicant Name: Northern Humboldt Union High School District
PR/Award #: S385A100105
State: CA

The Northern Humboldt Union High School District's Towards Higher Results through Incentives for Value-added Education (THRIVE) Program offers a plan that can achieve the six cornerstones of an effective performance-based compensation system, outlined in the report "It's More Than Money: Making Performance Based Compensation Work." These cornerstones are: (1) PBCS is a systemic reform; (2) compensation reform must be a partnership with the teachers; (3) PBCS must be organizationally sustainable; (4) PBCS must be financially sustainable; (5) a broad base of support is required in the district and community; (6) PBC must go beyond politics and finances to benefit students. In keeping with these cornerstones, the THRIVE Program will demonstrate how a strong partnership between the district, the teacher's union and its members, and site-based administrators can implement a rigorous program which uses extensive professional development, ongoing, standards-aligned formative assessment, state exam results, regular observations and frequent teacher evaluations to determine performance based bonuses up to 8% of an average teacher's salary.

While THRIVE is a PBCS program at the most fundamental level, its goal is to raise student performance, particularly among low-achieving students. In Northern Humboldt (NOHUM) approximately 53% of students are eligible for free and reduced priced meals. These students test at a much lower level than their not-economically disadvantaged classmates and participate in advanced, college-preparatory classes at as little as 1/10 the rate. These are the students the program must serve by implementing a program that (1) rewards teachers for student growth; (2) puts into practice regular formative assessments to determine what students are learning and are not learning; (3) provides professional development to train teachers in effective teaching techniques to improve student achievement; and (4) includes regular classroom observations (12 or more for all teachers every two years) to determine if the best practices are being effectively implemented or THRIVE to be successful it must result in large scale systemic change.

Applicant Name: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
PR/Award #: S385A100123
State: VA

The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) will develop the "Schools for Excellence" program in 23 high-need schools in the State of Maine and the City of Richmond, Virginia. The Schools for Excellence initiative will create a flexible and integrated Performance Based Compensation System (PBCS) that is specifically designed to grow teacher effectiveness and reward teachers and principals for deep knowledge of subject and high levels of performance.

Schools for Excellence promotes school-wide professional learning communities that change the learning culture of the school to increase student achievement and promote scalable and systemic reform. To achieve this goal, the program is built on rigorous professional standards and designed to be a comprehensive and aligned system of induction, professional development, evaluation, and compensation that will strengthen the educator workforce.

Each Schools for Excellence PBCS will include a variety of stipends and programs to: (1) recruit and retain National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) and other effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects; (2) develop the knowledge and skills of all teachers and principals via improved professional development including: mentoring and induction for new teachers; mentor training for experienced teachers; and use of NBPTS training; (3) support for National Board Certification for teachers, teacher leaders, and principals; (4) use comprehensive professional evaluations for teachers and principals that are tied to national standards and assessments as well as increased educator and student growth. This component incorporates a formal peer assistance and review program; (5) foster, measure, and reward student growth through compensation to teachers and principals that meet targets and standards for effective teaching.

Applicant Name: National Institute for Excellence in Teaching
PR/Award #: S385A100088
State: CA

The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, proposes to partner with five hard-to-staff schools in Louisiana, each its own local education agency (LEA) within the ADVANCE Baton Rouge (ABR) Charter organization, for a grant under the main Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) competition. This consortium of charter schools (Consortium) serves high-need student populations in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana.

The Consortium will implement TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP), a comprehensive teacher and principal effectiveness reform model that includes a performance-based compensation component that will reward differentiated compensation to effective teachers and principals. Through this project, the Consortium will be able to implement a performance-based compensation system (PBCS) to attract and retain the most effective educators to these high-need schools. None of the LEAs in this proposal are currently implementing a TIF-supported PBCS. Through the implementation of the TAP system, the Consortium will achieve the following goals in their high-need schools: (1) increase the percent of effective teachers through incentives, career advancement, evaluation and professional development; (2) increase the percent of effective principals through incentives, evaluation and professional development; and (3) improve student achievement.

Applicant Name: National Institute for Excellence in Teaching
PR/Award #: S385A100089
State: CA

The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) proposes to partner with two local education agencies, the Cross County School District (CCSD) and Lincoln Consolidated School District (LCSD) in Arkansas, both with high-need student populations, for a grant under the main Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) Competition. CCSD and LCSD are committed to the goals of - (1) increasing the percent of effective teachers through incentives, career advancement, evaluation and professional development; (2) increasing the percent of effective principals through incentives, evaluation and professional development; and (3) improving student achievement; therefore, both districts plan to implement a proven performance-based compensation system in all of their schools. The districts will make the incentives of the performance-based compensation system available to principals, assistant principals, teachers, and other school personnel to ensure unity of purpose in achieving the grant's goals.

To achieve their goals, the districts sought a rigorous, comprehensive reform and have decided to implement TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement, which offers differentiated compensation for effective teachers and principals through a comprehensive approach to the performance-based compensation system. TAP is one of America's leading comprehensive school reforms, providing educators with powerful opportunities of multiple career paths, ongoing applied professional growth, instructionally focused accountability and performance-based compensation.

Applicant Name: National Institute for Excellence in Teaching
PR/Award #: S385A100090
State: CA

The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), a nonprofit organization, proposes to partner with Knox County Schools (KCS), a local education agency (LEA) with a high-need student population in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a grant under the main Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) competition.

KCS will implement TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP), a comprehensive teacher and principal effectiveness reform model that includes a performance-based compensation component that will reward differentiated compensation to effective teachers and principals in 13 of KCS's high-need schools.

Through the implementation of the TAP system, KCS will achieve the following goals in KCS's high-need schools: (1) Increase the percent of effective teachers through incentives, career advancement, evaluation and professional development; (2) Increase the percent of effective principals through incentives, evaluation and professional development; and (3) Improve student achievement.

In KCS, teacher effectiveness will be evaluated based on multiple measures, including student achievement growth at both the classroom and school-wide level and the average of scores from four or more classroom observations each year. The classroom observation incorporates an additional measure of effectiveness, which is a survey of teacher responsibilities. Teachers earn performance-based compensation based on classroom value added (30%), school-wide value added (20%), and teacher evaluation scores (50%). In the event that the individual classroom achievement portion is not applicable due to a teacher teaching an untested grade or subject, the teacher's 30% for classroom achievement gains will be shifted to school achievement gains. Therefore, in KCS, for teachers not teaching a state tested grade level or subject area, the teacher will have the option to have award proportions remain at 50% teacher evaluation scores and 50% school-wide value-added. Principals earn performance-based compensation based on evaluation measures: school-wide value-added, observation scores, and scores on the 360-degree assessment of principal effectiveness. KCS will put $10,000 per principal and $5,000 per assistant principal into an award fund each year.

Additionally, under this grant, KCS will offer a —recruitment and retention bonus to draw effective teachers to hard-to-staff subjects in high-need schools. A bonus of $3,000 will be offered to teachers of hard-to-staff subjects who: 1) commit to coming back to the high-need school the next year by signing a contract; and 2) prove their effectiveness by achieving a year or more student growth at the classroom-level.

Based on performance, actual bonuses will range from zero to $5,000 for the most effective teachers. In addition, master and mentor teachers in KCS schools will earn salary augmentations of $12,000 and $7,000, respectively. This means that the most effective teachers in KCS can reasonably expect to earn up to $17,000 and $12,000 above base pay as master and mentor teachers. Further, teachers in hard-to-staff subjects could earn an additional $3,000 after their first year of teaching in the district. Therefore, TAP's differentiated compensation will help overcome the salary disparity between KCS and neighboring districts, fostering recruitment and retention.

Applicant Name: New Schools of New Orleans
PR/Award #: S385A100116
State: LA

New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) is a nonprofit organization partnering with 29 high-need schools in New Orleans that are either a part of the Recovery School District (RSD) or one of three Charter Management Organizations. The purpose of the program, called NOLA TIF, is to embed a performance based compensation system (PBCS) in participating schools, which together serve more than 12,400 (about 30%) of public school students in New Orleans. The goals of NOLA TIF are to: (a) improve the capacity of partner schools to implement a comprehensive performance-based compensation system for teachers and principals using the NOLA TIF system; (b) increase the percent of effective teachers, principals and assistant principals in schools in partner schools; (c) increase student achievement; and (d) improve each school's ability to recruit and retain effective teachers, principals and assistant principals.

NOLA TIF provides a comprehensive and sustainable array of rewards and career advancement opportunities for teachers and principals. These include monetary incentives for teachers improving student achievement based upon classroom evaluations, as well as incentives for principals and assistant principals leading their schools to accelerated achievement. Assessments of effectiveness will include value-added growth measures. Furthermore, the PBCS also features opportunities for career advancement, including leadership roles as master or mentor teachers, as well as job-embedded professional development targeted to individual teacher and student needs, as part of a cohesive approach to creating and sustaining a culture of continuous improvement.

Applicant Name: New York City Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100137
State: NY

The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is applying for funding under the Evaluation Competition of the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant program to implement the Urban Excellence Initiative. The NYCDOE is the largest school district in the country serving over one million students in 1,600 schools, of whom approximately 70% are eligible for Title I. NYCDOE will select 75 schools to participate in the program.

The basic principles underlying the Urban Excellence Initiative reflect the NYCDOE's theory of change that a critical mass of talent - not just one great leader or teacher - is needed to affect real change in persistently low-achieving schools. The overarching mission of the TIF project is to significantly raise student achievement in NYC's persistently low performing schools. This mission will be realized through the attainment of four project goals: (1) to develop, implement, and sustain a differentiated compensation system that has all of the core elements identified by the USDOE and is fully aligned with city, state and national standards, and that identifies and rewards highly effective educators who take on assignments in designated high-need schools; (2) to incentivize exemplary educators to work in designated high-need schools in school leader and teacher leader roles; (3) to improve the performance of all teachers in designated high-need schools; and (4) to transform some of the city's persistently low-performing schools so that they do not require the more disruptive and expensive option of closure.

The Urban Excellence Initiative will allow the NYCDOE to place an average of one Master Teacher and five Turnaround Teachers in the target restructuring schools. Master Teachers will be eligible to receive a 30% annual salary bonus over their base salary to serve as a highly effective teacher and teacher developer in the target schools and Turnaround Teachers will be eligible to receive a 15% salary bonus to serve as a highly effective and model teacher in target schools. The salary bonus will be contingent upon the receipt and maintenance of a "highly effective" rating on his/her annual performance review. In addition, the Urban Excellence Initiative will allow the NYCDOE to expand its Executive Principal program into ten of the highest-need target schools and will enable these leaders to choose an "Executive Assistant Principal" to partner with them in the difficult work of turning around a struggling school.

Applicant Name: New York State Education Department
PR/Award #: S385A100126
State: NY

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) proposes to create a performance-based compensation system within 80 high-need schools in four urban LEAs aligned to the State's broader, comprehensive plan to drive increases in educator effectiveness. The State's current human capital strategy, strengthened by the recent enactment of legislation linking student performance to teacher evaluations, focuses on student learning and provides data and targeted preparation, training, and professional development to elevate teaching and learning. The TIF project will leverage the State's current career ladders, known as Teacher and Principal Career Development Continua, to reward, at differentiated levels, those teachers and principals who demonstrate effectiveness by improving student achievement and assuming leadership responsibilities.

This project will be led by a partnership between NYSED; the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE), Rochester City School District (RCSD), Syracuse City School District (SCSD), and Yonkers Public Schools (YPS); and a non-profit organization that will be selected through a competitive request for proposals process. Collectively, these participating districts serve over 700,000 high-need students. Each of the four participating districts is expected to share local innovations from previous reform efforts in teacher and principal effectiveness to inform New York's TIF partnership. Such innovations include preparation program academy models, data initiatives to provide school-level value-added information, and alternative teacher career pathways. The project then expects to scale up lessons from the proposed PBCS to provide a model for LEAs around the State to redesign their compensation systems in an effort to drive further increases in student achievement.

Applicant Name: Putnam County School District
PR/Award #: S385A100115
State: FL

Through the Main Teacher Incentive Fund, Putnam County School District aims to create comprehensive, fair measures of teachers, principals, and other instructional personnel and to award performance-based compensation at the school level to encourage exemplary and highly effective staff to move to or remain at high need schools. In addition, Putnam County will develop enhanced assessments of student academic performance and student behavior. A first time TIF applicant, Putnam County will implement its proposed program in 18 schools, serving 11,000 students. The PBCS will be based on improved measures of instructional effectiveness, which will incorporate both effort and student performance. Effort includes the assumption of additional duties, such as mentorship, and the acquisition of credentials, certifications, and/or degrees determined to be of interest to the District's needs. Student performance will include learning gains in the core subjects of Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies, and assessments of areas such as planning and preparation, classroom management, and assessment management, as evaluated during classroom observations conducted at least twice annually. Putnam County will coordinate its professional development activities with the PBCS initiative by creating Individual Professional Development Plans that address functional skills and subject matter content areas identified through the assessment processes. The assessments of student performance and behavior will be employed to help teachers, principals, and instructional personnel increase delivery of differentiated instruction. Putnam County has grounded its program strategy in the principles of individual choice, transparency and fairness, multidimensionality, and a spirit of collaboration. The local teachers' union and the Florida Department of Education have recommended the program due its innovative approach to student performance assessment and its commitment to collaboration with all stakeholders in the District. By providing rewards for high-performing teachers, principals, and other instructional personnel, and facilitating improved assessments of student performance and behavior, Putnam County expects that the TIF grant will promote increased academic performance for students.

Applicant Name: Round Rock Independent School District (ISD)
PR/Award #: S385A100065
State: TX

The Round Rock Incentives for Superior Education Program (RRISE) will serve seven high-need campuses whose poverty levels have grown dramatically since 2000 in the Round Rock Independent School District, a suburban district in the environs of Austin. RRISE's innovative program will award teachers and principals based on school-wide value-added growth on standardized test scores according to grade level. RRISE will also employ district-level evaluators to conduct classroom evaluation for teachers and school-wide evaluation for principals, based on the belief that district-level evaluators can bring greater inter-rater reliability to the observation process. Both teachers and principals will also be assessed based upon the quality of a portfolio and their participation in collaborative instructional groups. Teachers will also be awarded for assuming leadership positions and, if they teach in hard-to-staff fields, may receive recruitment and retention incentives. Principals will be rewarded for teacher retention, as such retention is an indication of a healthy school climate and good leadership. In addition, RRISE will provide highly targeted professional development based upon the results of the observations and discussions with Master Teachers and Principal Coaches, as well as student data. RRISE will be staffed by a coordinator and three observers for professional growth who will observe teachers and principals, provide formative feedback, and give evaluation scores. RRISE will also employ personnel who are exclusively given over to formative evaluation and professional development: a principal coach who will work with administrators and five master teachers who will work with teachers. A data analyst will set growth targets and assess whether or not schools have met those goals.

Applicant Name: Safford Unified School District #1
PR/Award #: S385A100103
State: AZ

Safford Unified School Districts seeks to enhance its performance based compensation system (PBCS) through the Main Teacher Incentive Fund grant. The grant will serve six schools in rural Arizona. The goals of the Effective Teachers and Principals Program (ETAPP) are to increase student achievement in core content areas, improve upon the existing performance based compensation system, recruit and retain effective teachers and principals in high needs schools, and develop a more comprehensive staff development approach which focuses on individual student achievement data. The expansion and improvement of the existing program will allow the LEA to increase teacher participation and for the first time, include principals in the compensation system.

ETAPP will include a focus on student achievement, higher level leadership responsibilities, performance evaluation, analysis of student assessment data, collaboration with peers, and professional growth. The TIF-funded program will provide bonuses for the following:

  • Teachers' and principals' willingness to assume higher level leadership responsibilities such as peer coaches, mentors, staff development trainers, or action researchers.
  • Performance bonuses for teachers based on student achievement, peer group goals, and school achievement.
  • Performance bonuses for principals based on personal goals and school achievement.
  • Sign-on bonuses for highly qualified effective teachers.
This TIF grant will help recruit and retain effective teachers and principals in high needs schools and improve teacher and principal effectiveness through a focus on professional growth, student achievement, and greater leadership responsibilities.

Applicant Name: School Board of Miami-Dade County
PR/Award #: S385A100146
State: FL

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is seeking a Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant to develop and implement a pilot performance based compensation system (PCBS) in eight high-need elementary schools serving grades K-5. The CORE Initiative: Creating Opportunities to Reward Educators is an innovative five-year project that will enable high-need schools to recruit, reward, and retain the highly-effective teachers and administrators who are needed to engage and teach their students to succeed despite the many challenges they face.

The CORE Initiative will serve as a catalyst for change in these schools, supporting a culture of continuous improvement that will lead to increased teacher effectiveness and student achievement. The program incorporates multiple opportunities for teachers and principals to earn performance-based compensation based on comprehensive measures of student achievement. Additionally, the program recognizes the need for targeted professional development based on student data to improve effectiveness. The CORE Initiative performance-based compensation system is based on reliable, transparent student data that will allow M-DCPS to identify varying levels of effectiveness among its school-site instructional and administrative personnel that will help drive differentiated performance-based compensation and professional development.

The Core Initiative project design is the result of an intensive planning and design process that included input from teachers, principals, assistant principals, district administrators, union representatives, state education officials, and an external evaluator. During an initial 10-month planning period, M-DCPS will take the necessary steps to put all core components of the PBCS in place to ensure long-term success. Included among the key project objectives are improving student achievement at high-need schools so that increasing numbers of teachers and administrators qualify for the new performance-based compensation system, increasing teacher effectiveness in participating high-needs schools, and improving administrator effectiveness and instructional stall deployment practices.

Applicant Name: School Board of Orange County
PR/Award #: S385A100148
State: FL

Orange County Public Schools (OCPS), the 10th largest school district in the nation and the fourth largest in Florida, proposes a Teacher Incentive Fund program entitled Teacher Incentive Fund II: One Vision, One Voice to implement a performance-based compensation system (PBCS) in 15 high need elementary schools which feed into the district's three highest need, low income, high minority high schools and their seven feeder Title I middle schools. These secondary schools were targeted in a TIF grant funded in 2007.

This proposal will focus on two target populations: (1) teachers, principals, paraprofessionals and other school-based certified educators in the 15 targeted elementary schools; and (2) other certified teachers working in the secondary schools targeted in the 2007 TIF program, but who were not served, including guidance counselors, deans, resource teachers, media specialists, academic coaches and other certified teachers. Building on TIF I, the proposed TIF II: One Vision, One Voice will potentially serve 715 classroom teachers, 30 principals and assistant principals, 59 other certified educators, and 139 paraprofessionals per year in the targeted schools.

The objectives are to increase the number of highly effective teachers and administrators in high need schools through implementation of a PBCS that rewards educators primarily based on student growth; offering high quality professional development to teachers, principals and paraprofessionals; recruiting and retaining highly effective teachers and principals; and developing a data system that links student achievement data with the performance-based compensation system, professional development, and evaluation of teachers and administrators.

The result of the TIF II: One Vision, One Voice initiative, aligned with Race to the Top standards, will be a comprehensive PBCS in the district's highest need K-12 schools that supports effective teaching and improved student achievement.

Applicant Name: School Board of Pinellas County
PR/Award #: S385A100073
State: FL

Pinellas County Schools (PCS) requests funding from the main Teacher Incentive Fund to develop a performance based compensation system (PBCS) to be implemented in Azalea Middle School, Bay Point Middle School, John Hopkins Middle School, and Pinellas Park Middle School. These schools currently have difficulty recruiting and retaining highly effective administrators and teachers, especially in reading, math, science and exceptional student education.

A key component of the PCS program is a new appraisal instrument, which includes the use of student achievement data. Through the TIF grant, PCS will be able to provide teachers and administrators who improve student achievement with up to $9,000 per year in incentive payments. Teachers and administrators also have the opportunity to receive an additional $2,000 per year for taking on additional leadership responsibilities, such as tutoring students beyond their contract, mentoring students, or becoming a master teacher. Other elements of the program will be the enhancement of professional development and the improvement of data management systems to incorporate online, real-time information for teachers and administrators. The program is expected to help address recruitment and retention issues, and to improve teaching and learning at the four schools.

Applicant Name: School District of Pittsburgh
PR/Award #: S385A100125
State: PA

On June 14, 2010, teachers in the School District of Pittsburgh approved a comprehensive five-year collective bargaining agreement centered on what matters most—advancing the teaching profession in a way that improves student achievement. This historic agreement is anchored in the Empowering Effective Teachers plan, which was co-authored by the school district and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and funded in part by a $40 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The plan changes the way the district hires, supports, compensates and evaluates teachers. The Empowering Effective Teachers plan, and five years of successful reform, has positioned Pittsburgh to prove that effective teachers can move urban students to achievement levels that lead to college success or workforce certification.

The School District of Pittsburgh will use its TIF grant to complete realization of the Empowering Effective Teachers plan. The TIF grant will provide the funding, the time, and the necessary pieces of the management structure to get to the core of needed change in public education. With TIF funds, Pittsburgh will build and make sustainable a new compensation system with an approach to performance-based compensation that is mature, thoughtful, and complete. The project recognizes the complexity of measuring teacher effectiveness and embraces the challenge of ensuring that these measures, and the compensation system they inform, are not just about summative decisions or singular rewards, but are used to improve practice and increase the capacity of teachers and principals to raise student achievement. The project also provides significant earning opportunities for effective teachers. These opportunities are linked to a number of measures and offered at the district, school, cohort, and individual levels.

The performance based compensation system (PBCS) is part of a proposed district strategy supported by the staff for improving the process by which it rewards teachers, principals, and other personnel in high-need schools based upon their effectiveness. The program will use a rigorous, transparent, and fair evaluation system and includes a data-management system that link can students to teachers. The Empowering Effective Teachers plan also includes high-quality professional development to help educators improve.

Applicant Name: Seattle Public Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100135
State: WA

This proposal for the main TIF competition requests $13,237,485 as part of a larger $21M project that will position the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) as a strong regional model of how performance-based compensation systems can support teacher and principal professional growth and in the process, improve student learning outcomes. Over five years, this project will directly impact more than 800 teachers and 54 principals and assistant principals; and most importantly, more than 16,000 students who will be led by motivated, highly effective teachers and principals across 34 target high need schools. After the project period, SPS will sustain the momentum enabled by this TIF grant to reach all 88 schools in its K-12 system, the largest in the state, and set an example for school systems throughout the rest of the Washington.

Over the last three years, Seattle has moved from a collection of independent schools operating with little direction and no accountability, to one with clear system-wide performance goals, aligned supports to help schools and staff meet expectations, and differentiated interventions based on performance. This work to design and implement a performance management system for the district, schools and central office departments provides SPS with the foundation needed to be successful with the next phase of work: developing a similar system for our most impactful employees - teachers and principals. Having already launched improvements to hiring, evaluation, and mentoring, SPS will move forward on five comprehensive and strategic fronts that form the core work elements of this proposal:

  • Recruit: Incentives for recruiting principals and teachers to high-need, low-performing schools;
  • Mentor: Mentoring programs for teachers and principals;
  • Support: Teacher and principal professional development aligned to new evaluation;
  • Evaluate and Assess: System includes observations and student growth measures for evaluating teachers and student achievement goals for principals; and
  • Recognize/Reward and Retain: Career ladder opportunities for teachers; incentives for teachers in high-need, low-performing schools; and principal incentive pay for high performers.
The ultimate outcome of the proposed work will be a dramatic improvement in student achievement. Specifically, SPS expects that over the next five years the district will see a 15 percentage point decline in the number of schools performing in the lowest two segments of our quantitative performance framework. This shift from 40% of schools in these segments (68% of which enroll more than 50% FRL-eligible students) to no more than 25%, will result from continued focus on strengthening curriculum, content-focused instructional support, and high quality service programs, AND improved talent that is supported, mentored, and recognized for high performance with career growth opportunities.

Seattle Public Schools' state of readiness meets all three absolute competition priorities, but not all competitive preferences and core PBCS elements. Much of what is outlined in this proposal is currently being or will need to be bargained with our union partners. Therefore, SPS proposes taking one year to plan, further refine, and engage stakeholders in the proposed work plan. The district is committed to good faith bargaining and continuous improvement - as a result, we are confident of a productive planning year. Over the subsequent four years, SPS will roll-out new teacher and principal evaluations that include student growth expectations and offer recognition and rewards for high performers. As these new expectations and opportunities roll out, staff will be able to access additional mentoring, support, and PD to help them create the most supportive teaching and learning environment so that every student will achieve and everyone will be accountable for that success.

Applicant Name: South Carolina Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100134
State: SC

The South Carolina Department of Education (SC) will apply for the TIF grant in the main competition, having designed a model, SC TAP, to create a performance based compensation system (PBCS) to recruit, develop, enhance and retain quality educators in identified high-need schools across the state of South Carolina. Specifically, SC TIF will work with 1,703 teachers and principals, effecting 20,433 students in 42 schools within 12 school districts across South Carolina to develop a comprehensive model of reform to enhance student achievement, while increasing compensation for highly effective educators. Through the effort of SC TIF, South Carolina will reach the tipping point of moving from a pilot initiative to a full blown state-wide model of reform.

SC TIF offers new models for incentives for recruitment and retention of teachers and administrators in hard-to-staff areas in high-need schools, multiple professional training opportunities, as well as new compensation and career advancement opportunities. It honors the essence, while changing the structure of the education profession. The SC TAP System is designed around four key pillars of reform: (1) Multiple career paths, which allow teachers the opportunities for career advancement while continuing to work directly with students to increase achievement; (2) Performance based accountability, using multiple measures of student and teacher achievement in a fair and rigorous manner; (3) Ongoing, applied professional development to allow teachers to target and develop the required skills to address the needs of the individual teacher as well as the needs of the students; and lastly, (4) Performance Based compensation, which enables teachers and principals the opportunity to increase compensation, based on student achievement measured using a value-added growth model as well as instructional excellence as evaluated by a valid, reliable and rigorous instrument.

Through SC TIF, the Department of Education will implement a performance-based compensation system, using value-added measures that are reliable and transparent to enhance the educational culture, and recruit and retain highly effective educators; these measures will ultimately effect the student achievement for all students. SC TIF will become a beacon for other districts across the State. Through a joint partnership with the 12 districts, SC TIF will be a reflection of the power teachers hold over their individual professional growth as well as their compensation. SC TIF will be a unique reform effort that involves teachers every step of the way, starting with teachers voting to implement the reform and continuing with teachers being the main decision makers as it relates to identifying and reforming their individual developmental needs and the unique needs within their classroom.

Applicant Name: Texas Education Agency
PR/Award #: S385A100128
State: TX

Texas Teacher Incentive Fund (Texas TIF) grant for the main competition. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) requests $50,169,741 over the next five years to implement a comprehensive performance-based compensation system in 36 schools and 11 districts in Texas that serve high poverty populations with low student achievement. The primary goal of the Texas TIF Program is to improve student achievement in high-need schools through a comprehensive strategy that includes:

  • rewarding teachers and principals for effectiveness with performance-based differentiated compensation;
  • incentives for recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and principals in high need schools;
  • incentives for recruiting and retaining high quality teachers in hard-to-staff subject areas;
  • opportunities for appropriate and consistent staff development for all faculty;
  • one-on-one mentors to enhance reflection of teaching practices;
  • continued growth in creating a professional learning community; and
  • use of data driven instruction and planning.

The Texas TIF program has strategically aligned partnerships between the Texas TAP System, the New Teacher Project, and Teach for America in an effort to maximize the effectiveness of the Texas public school human capital strategy.

Objectives include:- 1) By August 2010, provide substantial financial recruitment incentives for effective teachers and principals; 2) By August 2011, all TIF schools funded under this grant will be fully operational with differentiated compensation given to teachers based on their level of increased responsibility; 3) By May 2012, improve student achievement by at least one standard error above the control group (as measured by value-added growth); 4) By August 2012, begin the school year with 100% of certified positions filled with effective teachers; 5) By May 2013, expand TIF so that two additional schools for every TIF school will implement a similar performance pay system (funded through sources other than this grant); and 6) By June 2015, produce an in-depth report that examines the results and lessons learned, and develop a toolkit that other states can use to replicate the implementation of the Texas TIF program.

Applicant Name: The College-Ready Promise
PR/Award #: S385A100082
State: CA

The College-Ready Promise (TCRP) is applying for the main TIF competition to establish tools and processes for improving the evaluation of educators and for better delivering support, growth opportunities, and differentiated compensation based on these evaluations. TCRP is a coalition of five California-based Charter Management Organizations (CMOs)—Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, Inner City Education Foundation Public Schools, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities—with a shared conviction: lifting student achievement and ensuring that low-income, minority children can access and succeed in college. Effective teaching and excellent school leadership will prepare students for this success.

Through TCRP's Educator Effectiveness Project—a comprehensive, game-changing initiative to systemically improve and sustain teacher and principal effectiveness—the five CMOs are working together on transforming how educators are evaluated, the content of those evaluations (i.e., what constitutes "effectiveness"), and what happens based on evaluations. The Educator Effectiveness Project will be co-created and designed with the significant involvement of teachers, principals and union representatives. Key components of this project include using value-added measures of student growth, instituting new career paths and differentiated compensation for the most effective educators, and implementing new recruitment and induction efforts.

At the end of the five-year grant period, 70 to 75% of students across TCRP schools will score at advanced or proficient levels on the elementary state assessment and twice the current percentage will enter college fully prepared for college-level work.

Applicant Name: Tennessee Department of Education
PR/Award #: S385A100143
State: TN

The State of Tennessee is applying to the main Teacher Incentive Fund competition in partnership with more than 100 high-needs schools and key professional organizations, including the Tennessee Education Association, Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents, and Tennessee School Boards Association. The State is in an unprecedented position to implement the proposed Tennessee Teacher Incentive Fund (TN-TIF) reforms as multiple resources and stakeholders, reform initiatives, and legislative changes have converged in a very purposeful manner for the advancement of performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems (PBCS). Up until this time, however, Tennessee has had few funds or craft knowledge to successfully implement differentiated pay plans. Moreover, even though the First to the Top legislation and programs promote compensation reform, it did not require school systems to develop and implement them, although a strong desire does exist among schools and school systems in the State.

Tennessee is requesting a total of $34.9 million over five years to develop and implement the TN-TIF program. The TN-TIF program provides the resources for more than 100 high-needs schools in 14 school districts to engage in deliberate and guided design and implementation process. All activities are grounded in best practice personnel policies, informed by empirical research on incentive pay programs, aligned with Tennessee's value-added assessment system and educator evaluation systems, and supported by professional development offerings and technical assistance provided by national and international compensation reform experts.

During the 2010-11 school year, schools and school districts participating in the TN-TIF program will continue to develop and refine design elements of their PBCS. By the 2011-12 school year, the TN-TIF Design Team will initiate implementation of the new compensation systems supported by a comprehensive, multi-pronged communication strategy, a rigorous, fair, and transparent evaluation system, performance-oriented data and information management systems, and state-of-the-art professional development and technical assistance activities. More specifically, these performance-based teacher and principal pay reforms incorporate:

  • Multiple performance measures for evaluating educators and their schools, including innovative instruments that gauge student and school well-being and the quality of the teaching and learning environment within schools and classrooms;
  • Individual along with team- and/or school-level units of accountability;
  • Significant financial incentives, ranging from $1,500 to more than $10,000; and
  • Recognition of educators for their leadership in disseminating effective compensation practices statewide.
Ultimately, the TN-TIF program will enhance educators' ability to advance student learning and professional skills, engage on-going professional learning and school development opportunities, advance professional leadership, and provide resources to not only sustain - through new resources and/or reallocation of existing funding streams - but also scale-up promising practices that support effective teaching and leadership.

Applicant Name: Uplift Education
PR/Award #: S385A100087
State: TX

Uplift Education (Uplift) is a charter management organization (CMO) with five college-preparatory charter school campuses, each with its own primary, middle, and high school. The campuses are all high need, have a majority of students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and have high minority populations ranging from 92 to 99 percent. Uplift will implement the Shine Through Teaching Excellence (STTE) program to reward highly effective school leaders and teachers for creating, reaching, and maintaining high standards of student achievement.

The STTE program identifies and rewards effective school leaders based on a combination of direct and value-added measures of student achievement and teacher performance. Effective teachers will be rewarded based on value-added measures of their students' achievement, demonstrated teamwork, and results of classroom observations conducted three times a year. Multiple rating categories will be used to ensure fair and equitable educator evaluation, and a critical part of the plan is linking professional development to these categories to maintain a clear focus on student achievement.

In addition, STTE includes refinement of Uplift's database for tracking student-teacher assignments; incentives for highly effective teachers and school leaders to move to and stay in high needs campuses; implementation of a tool for common formative assessments; a thorough communication plan to ensure stakeholder awareness and understanding; and an external evaluation to ensure the integrity of the performance based compensation system.

Applicant Name: Wake County Public School System
PR/Award #: S385A100070
State: NC

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) is applying for a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's main Teacher Incentive Fund grant competition. WCPSS's goals include educating students to succeed in the 21st century workplace and to increase student achievement. To that end, the district is seeking funding to support further implementation of a performance-based compensation model at one of the district's Title I elementary schools.

In 2008, Wilburn Elementary, a school-wide Title I school with 57.8% of the student population qualifying for the Free or Reduced-Lunch Program, voted to begin implementation of a systemic school reform model know as TAP (the System for Teacher and Student Advancement). The TAP program includes key elements that align with the goals of the Teacher Incentive Fund program; including, instructionally focused accountability and performance based compensation.

Funding from the Teacher Incentive Fund would allow Wilburn Elementary to fully implement the TAP model to fidelity. As a part of TAP, teachers will have the opportunity to participate in multiple career paths, receive rewards based upon their evaluations and student growth, receive job-imbedded professional development that is relevant to the staff at Wilburn, and receive evaluations based on an instructionally focused rubric. Eligibility for performance-based compensation will be extended to include teacher assistants and school administration (i.e., principal and assistant principal). Anticipated long-term goals should the grant be awarded are an increase in teacher effectiveness, improved student learning of the curriculum (based on formative and summative assessment results), and closing the achievement gaps.

Applicant Name: Washoe County School District
PR/Award #: S385A100068
State: NV

The Principal and Teacher Performance Growth System is a performance-based compensation plan for Washoe County School District (WCSD) teachers, principals, and other personnel. It is multi-faceted and includes the use of student growth indicators and "valued-added tools." As of February 2010, Nevada's new law, Nevada Revised Statute 386.650, mandates all school districts and charter schools use student performance data as part of their principal and teacher evaluation systems. WCSD's goal for this project is: to increase the number of highly effective and competent certified teachers and principals who reflect the District's mission, vision, and core beliefs through the implementation of an effective and comprehensive evaluative growth system.

WCSD recognizes that—although student achievement data are central to the evaluation system—knowledge, skills, and disposition are also critical components of the evaluation system in Nevada's statewide strategy. Targeting nine of our highest-need schools, this project encompasses a systemic reform initiative for our human resources which includes: a) working collaboratively with WCSD collective bargaining units to develop, pilot, modify, and communicate consistent, reliable, and fair evaluation rubrics and policies to measure principal, teacher, and other personnel performance growth; b) training administrators, principals, and Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) teams so they can conduct consistent, reliable, and fair teacher and principal performance evaluations and communicate evaluation findings to evaluatees; c) developing ongoing, embedded professional learning and support focused on individual performance growth for teacher retention in hard-to-fill schools; d) developing different levels of compensation and career ladders for effective teachers and principals based on set criteria at participating schools; and e) sustaining the system by leveraging district resources, federal, state, and private funds.

Applicant Name: Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
PR/Award #: S385A100114
State: NC

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in North Carolina will fully develop and implement an educational model to improve student achievement in its high-need schools through better teacher recruitment, retention, and reward. Project STAR (School Transformation by Actively Recruiting, Retaining, and Rewarding) will address the problem of high teacher turnover in hard-to-staff areas. In addition, the proposed project will directly address the need for staff at high-need schools to focus on high-quality, sustained professional development. Finally, Project STAR will address student achievement in a deliberate, data-driven, value-added approach to ensure informed decisions about instruction are made.

Project STAR will recruit teachers in hard-to-staff areas by providing an attractive signing bonus to established, effective teachers. The project will retain teachers and administrators through pervasive professional development that is aligned with the North Carolina Teacher Evaluation Process and the North Carolina Principal Evaluation Process. Project STAR will reward effective teachers, principals, and other personnel through a differentiated incentive pay plan that is substantial enough to result in behavioral, systemic change.

In order to fully implement the project, instructional coaches will be utilized to ensure the saturation of the educational model at the school level. In order to maximize the impact on high-need students, the project will work with twelve high-need schools involved in Title I school improvement. Through the recruitment, retention, and rewarding of effective teachers, Project STAR will improve student achievement at these high-need schools.

Applicant Name: Youth Empowerment Services, Inc.
PR/Award #: S385A100099
State: TX

The Teacher Effectiveness Process or TEP PBCS, with proposed funding from TIF, has been developed to implement a comprehensive performance-based compensation system (PBCS) for teachers and principals in ten (10) high-need charter schools in San Antonio, Texas after successful completion of 10 - 12 month planning period. Several model PBCS programs were research before designing the Teacher Effectiveness Process (TEP). TEP is being designed to support a sustainable differentiated performance-based compensation system (PBCS) that rewards teachers and principals for improved student performance based upon a value added model and the increased effectiveness of teachers and principals based upon performance-based evaluations with evidence of effectiveness in order to differentiate the compensation.

TEP matches the TIF goals/objectives, the absolute and competitive priorities and with a comprehensive approach to reforming the way we pay and incentivize teachers and principals for becoming effective educators and improving student performance, is poised to be the answer for recruiting and retaining effective teachers in some of San Antonio's neediest schools. The Teacher Effectiveness Process (TEP) is comprehensively designed to provide priority 1) differentiated levels of compensation for effective teachers and principals, priority 2) implementation of TEP to include fiscal sustainability measures to continue and support the PBCS during and after the award period, priority 3) comprehensive approaches that strengthen the educator work force through a coherent and integrated system using data and evaluations for professional development and retention and tenure decisions, priority 4) value-added measures of student achievement to guide the differentiated PBCS that are clearly explained to all high need schools' educators and priority 5) recruitment and retention of effective educators for high-need students in high-need subject areas and to fill vacancies with effective educators.

View the 2007 awards.

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Last Modified: 03/02/2011