Department of Education Releases Applications for Teacher Incentive Fund Grants

Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced the release of applications for $437 million in Teacher Incentive Fund grants (TIF). TIF grants are competitively awarded federal grants that local education agencies (LEAs), state education agencies (SEAs), and partnerships between either of these entities and non-profit organizations can use to implement programs that address the distribution of high quality teachers among high-need schools and subject areas. These grants are made possible through both a fiscal year 2010 appropriation of $300 million and a carryover appropriation of $137 million from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The Department of Education is likely to award between 40 and 80 grants ranging from $5 million to $10 million, and applications are due July 6, 2010.

These grants will be awarded specifically to programs that support Performance Based Compensation Systems (PBCSs) for teachers and principals. In the past, TIF grants have been available for other basic types of teacher compensation programs like pay incentives for teachers that work in hard-to-staff schools and subjects. However, the Obama Administration shifted its focus for the grants over to PBCSs after the Department of Education announced that ARRA funding for the TIF will go to support these performance-based programs. Additionally, appropriations for TIF have increased dramatically since the ARRA. Regular appropriations in fiscal years 2006 through 2009 were less than $100 million in each year.

To award these grants, the Department will split the competition into two separate parts. The first competition, known as the Main TIF competition, will focus on the design and implementation of PBCSs. The second competition, called the TIF Evaluation competition, will require grantees to cooperate with an evaluation contractor that will conduct a rigorous study of the impact of the PBCS. Those that receive grants under this second competition will receive an additional $1-$2 million to use for TIF activities in exchange for its cooperation with the evaluation. The second competition fulfills an ARRA requirement to conduct a national evaluation of PBCSs’ effect on teacher and principal recruitment and retention.

As part of the focus on PBCSs, ED will require applicants under both competitions to align their proposals with three “absolute priorities” they have defined. Applications that do not address all three of these priorities will not be considered in the competition.

The first priority requires applicants to demonstrate that they will implement a PBCS that involves differentiated levels of compensation for effective teachers and principals. This means that teachers or principals that help improve student achievement (and are therefore deemed “effective”) must receive incentive payments (or some other sort of differentiated pay) of some significant value. Under this priority, teacher effectiveness measures must include student growth, peer or principal observations, and other measures like leadership roles.

Priorities for Teacher Incentive Grant Applications
Type	Priority	Additional Points
Absolute	Differentiated Levels of Compensation	N/A
Absolute	Fiscal Sustainability	N/A
Absolute	Comprehensive Approaches to PBCS	N/A
Competitive Preference	Value-Added Measures	5
Competitive Preference	Increased Recruitment and Retention of Effective Teachers in High-Need Schools and Subjects	5
Competitive Preference	New Applicants to TIF	2

The second priority addresses the fiscal sustainability of the PBCS. Applicants must show that they have anticipated the costs associated with the PBCS they are proposing over time and will provide an increasing share of the cost of the PBCS from non-TIF monies over the five years of the program.

The third priority requires applicants to prove that the PBCSs they are proposing are part of a larger comprehensive teacher quality strategy. This means that LEAs, SEAs, and non-profits cannot implement PBCSs in a vacuum. They must be accompanied by other strategies like professional development, retention and tenure systems that are based on data and evaluations, and other methods.

ED has also identified three “Competitive Preference” priorities for the TIF grants. Applications that address one or both of these priorities will be given additional points during the application review process. These are described below:

Applicants can receive an additional five points towards their overall TIF score if they propose a PBCS that uses value-added measures of student achievement. This means that the proposed PBCS will measure the specific impact of a student’s teacher on that student’s academic growth by controlling for various factors like student demographics and teacher characteristics. This will require extensive data systems and specific knowledge of value-added analysis.

Applicants can also receive an additional five points if they propose a PBCS that will help high-need schools recruit and retain effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects. This means that applicants will have to determine how they will know that a new teacher is “effective” and how they will identify “hard-to-staff” subjects.

Finally, an applicant will be awarded two additional points if they have not previously received a TIF grant or propose to implement a PBCS in a school or district that has not previously benefitted from a TIF grant.

The Teacher Incentive Fund program provides a unique opportunity for states and school districts to implement out-of-the-box teacher compensation systems. The new focus on PBCSs, and away from simpler incentive programs, represents a risk for the Obama administration. If the ARRA-funded TIF Evaluation competition reveals that PBCSs are ineffective at retaining effective teachers, then significant federal funds will have been wasted. However, given the current demand for alternative teacher compensation and other methods that redefine the way teachers are hired and retained, this may be a gamble worth making.