Equal Access to Effective Teaching Forum

This study examined whether providing large financial incentives would encourage high-performing teachers to transfer to low-performing schools, whether those teachers would be successful at improving student achievement, and whether they would remain at the school after the payments ended.

Many education policy experts have raised concerns that disadvantaged students, who are often concentrated in low-performing schools, do not have the same access to highly effective teachers as other students.

Recent federal initiatives in education, such as Race to the Top, the Teacher Incentive Fund, and the flexibility policy for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are designed in part to ensure that disadvantaged students have equal access to effective teaching.