Using Incentives to Move a District’s Highest-Performing Teachers to its Lowest-Achieving Schools

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“Moving Teachers: Implementation of Transfer Incentives in Seven Districts” describes the implementation and intermediate impacts of an intervention designed to provide incentives to induce a school district’s highest-performing teachers to work in its lowest-achieving schools. The intervention, called the Talent Transfer Initiative or TTI, was carried out in 7 districts and includes an incentive of $20,000 over 2 years to a district’s highest-performing teachers who agreed to move to teach in the district’s targeted lower performing schools.

The report uses random assignment within each district to form two equivalent groups of classrooms at the same grade level ("teacher teams"), a treatment group that had the chance to participate in the intervention and a control group that did not. Analyses include 90 vacancy pairs and 86 schools in the 7 study districts.

Data for this report were collected on program implementation and teacher- and principal-reported behaviors and perceptions.

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