New teachers at some of Nashville's lowest-performing schools receive $5,000 bonus

New teachers at some of Nashville's lowest-performing schools received a $5,000 bonus in their paycheck on Friday. As reported in The Tennessean, "The one-time stipend is for newly recruited teachers in the city's 23 lowest-performing schools, or Priority Schools, to teach English, math or science classes and those who specialize in exceptional education and English-learning instruction.

In total, 49 teachers on Friday got the extra pay, according to Sharon Griffin, Nashville schools' newly hired chief of innovation."

This is wise policy. Nashville has a serious problem recruiting and retaining teachers. Nashville schools started this year with 100 teacher vacancies, concentrated in  the worst schools.

This policy makes sense. I would go a step further and give those who teach in the worst schools on-going "combat pay."  It would probably not be cool to call it "combat pay," but teachers teaching inner city children need to make more money than those teaching nice white kids in the suburbs. What happens is that teachers who get hired and teach in an inner city school try to get transferred to better schools as soon as they can.  

I think the pay for those teaching in the worst schools should increase till we reach the point at which the extra pay is  sufficient to make teachers want those jobs.  Until we reach that point, across the board pay increases should be off the table. 

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