Differential Pay: Nebraska

Retaining Effective Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should support differential pay for effective teaching in shortage and high-needs areas.

Meets a small part of goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Differential Pay: Nebraska results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/NE-Differential-Pay-9

Analysis of Nebraska's policies

Nebraska supports incentives earned by teaching certain subjects and in high-needs schools. The state offers a program entitled, "Attracting Excellence to Teaching," which provides high-achieving students who complete a teacher education program with loan repayments of up to $3,000 annually. Loan forgiveness is doubled if the teacher practices in shortage areas or a high-poverty school.

Citation

Recommendations for Nebraska

Expand differential pay initiatives for teachers in subject shortage areas and high-needs schools.
Although the state's loan forgiveness program is a desirable recruitment and retention tool for teachers early in their careers, Nebraska should expand its program to include those already part of the teaching pool. A salary differential is an attractive incentive for every teacher, not just those with education debt. 

State response to our analysis

Nebraska commented that the Excellence to Teaching Act was revised to provide funds for individuals seeking teacher certificates (AETP) and for individuals seeking master's degrees (EETP). Consideration for awards is given to shortage areas. Loan forgiveness is based upon teaching, with accelerated forgiveness for teaching in high poverty areas. Two years of awards have been made under the EETP. However, new awards will be suspended for the upcoming two years due to budget constraints. Loan forgiveness will continue for all awardees who meet the services requirements.

Research rationale

Two recent studies emphasize the need for differential pay. In "Teacher Quality and Teacher Mobility", L. Feng and T. Sass find that high performing teachers tend to transfer to schools with a large proportion of other high performing teachers and students, while low performing teachers cluster in bottom quartile schools (CALDER: Urban Institute 2011).  Another study from T. Sass et al found that the least effective teachers in high-poverty schools were considerably less effective than the least effective teachers in low-poverty schools.

Charles Clotfelter, et al., "Would Higher Salaries Keep Teachers in High-Poverty Schools? Evidence from a Policy Intervention in North Carolina," Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, May 16, 2006 at:
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12285.

Julie Kowal, et al., "Financial Incentives for Hard to Staff Positions," Center for American Progress, November 2008.

A study by researchers at Rand found that higher pay lowered attrition, and the effect was stronger in high-needs school districts. Every $1,000 increase was estimated to decrease attrition by more than 6 percent. See S.N. Kirby, et al., "Supply and Demand of Minority Teachers in Texas: Problems and Prospects," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1999; 21(1): 47-66 at: http://epa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/47