Chapter 6: Understanding South Carolina’s Rural Recruitment Initiative: A State Funded Program Developed to Improve Teacher Recruitment and Retention

Policymakers have heavily emphasized and promoted financial incentives, such as hiring bonuses, loan forgiveness, and housing assistance, in hopes to “offset” the detracting employment aspects in hard-to-staff schools to recruit and retain teachers to teach in them (Lowe, 2006; Feng & Sass, 2018; Springer et al., 2016; Tran & Smith, 2020). Despite their intuitive appeal, the research on their efficacy is quite mixed. Some research supports the value of financial incentives for teacher staffing. For example, Clotfelter et al. (2008) examined the impact of North Carolina’s annual salary supplement of $1,800 from 2001 to 2004 for teachers certified in math, science, and special education in high poverty or low performing schools and discovered that the payment was able to reduce the average teacher turnover rate by 17%, although survey results suggest there was widespread misunderstanding of eligibility requirements and criticism concerning the insufficiency of the bonus size. Likewise, Springer et al. (2016) found that a $5,000 retention bonus for high-performing teachers in Tennessee’s Priority Schools increased the likelihood of retaining the highest-rated teachers for tested subjects and grades in high-needs schools by 20%.