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National Evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund Program

The ineffectiveness of current educator labor markets has led policymakers to experiment with alternative strategies to place the best educators where they are most needed and to improve the skills of the current workforce. The U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program seeks to support these efforts by stimulating reforms in teacher and principal compensation designed to reward especially effective teachers and principals, attract effective teachers to high-need schools and content areas, and support ongoing improvement in school and teacher effectiveness. This study is an ongoing 5-year partnership with Berkeley Policy Associates and the Urban Institute that began in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of the federal TIF grant program, which provides financial support to states and school districts that implement innovative pay and incentive systems for primary and secondary school teachers and principals.

During the first phase of the project, researchers are conducting two feasibility studies to determine whether existing data can be used to measure the outcomes of the TIF program on teacher retention and student outcomes. During the second phase, the study will include in-depth phone interviews with individuals in each of the 34 program grantees, case studies among a sample of sites, and surveys of teachers and principals. The study is expected to fill a large gap in the knowledge base on educator compensation reform and to meet the U.S. Department of Education's need for critical information on its investment in the TIF program that has been substantially increased under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (by an additional $200 million).

(U.S. Department of Education, 2008-2013)

Key Staff

Principal Investigator: Daniel Humphrey

Project Director: H. Alix Gallagher

Staff: Jennifer Bland, Ashley Campbell, Kyle Goss, Alejandra Lopez-Torkos, Nicolette Mayes, Kaily Yee