In my 12 years at Stand for Children Indiana, there may not be an issue that garners more consensus from parents than the need to stop the revolving door of educators in our schools.
While each parent advocate has had their own personal story to tell, the themes are eerily similar – a life-changing teacher has made a huge impact on their kiddo only to find out that the educator is soon leaving the school for another role elsewhere. It’s not only heartbreaking for students but also extremely costly to the school and community – both in valuable education outcomes as well as actual costs for the school or district to re-hire for the position (especially in this environment where teacher talent is in shorter supply).
In 2023, Indiana had nearly 7,700 teachers leave their role according to data from the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board. If we apply a formula from the Learning Policy Institute that estimates the cost of teacher turnover, then Indiana is spending anywhere from $90 million to more than $126 million to fill positions after educators leave their jobs.
The human impact and monetary costs of teacher turnover motivated our team to seek the input of several knowledgeable partners over the last six months, in an attempt to understand what Indiana can do to retain its best teachers. These discussions led to a wide range of ideas, in addition to a number of challenges that could stand in the way of success. The feedback from partners centered around the following themes:
- Any policy ideas would likely need to be cost neutral due to state revenue forecasts pointing towards a challenging budget cycle for Indiana in the next biennium.
- Solutions need to be more wholistic and address several systemic challenges that impact retention, rather than small pilot programs that fail to “connect the dots” on key aspects of why teachers leave.
- Ideas need to be evidence-based, with some form of past success to indicate future benefits for Indiana.
After seven group meetings and many hours of research, one state’s approach kept coming up in our discussions: Texas. Modeled after an innovative local district approach, the Texas Incentive Allotment (TIA) is a program designed to attract, reward, and retain highly effective educators, improve student outcomes, and provide schools with the flexibility to address their unique needs. Here’s how it works:
- State funding is provided to districts to boost teacher compensation for high-performing educators.
- School districts receive additional funding for every high-performing teacher they employ and even more funding for those earning a highly effective designation who work in rural and/or high-needs schools.
- School and district leaders must use these additional funds on teacher compensation on the campus where the designated teacher works.
- To participate in the program, districts must create an evaluation plan for teachers that involves student growth data and observations, which are then used to designate teachers as one of three levels of performance (Recognized, Exemplary and Master).
After three years, the TIA has improved teacher retention in Texas by 7.5%, and feedback from teachers show additional benefits, including staff culture and training improving thanks to the increase in mentorship and growth of instructional leadership roles.
The consensus among partners is to dive deeper into the TIA model and determine if it could act as a guide for rethinking the Teacher Appreciation Grant, which is $37 million in the Indiana budget that typically sends small stipends to teachers without much guidance or overarching strategy to improve retention or reward teachers for taking on additional leadership.
In the end, we believe a targeted investment in our top educators, who are difference-makers in their schools, could go a long way to helping increase teacher retention. And we’re grateful for the partners who have, to this point, helped us better understand what a high leverage policy approach might look like to better utilize funding to elevate great educators in Indiana.
