Mission Possible: Lessons from North Carolina

Last week, some of my colleagues attended the ED Trust's annual conference, and came back with some interesting ideas and news about education reforms and practices that are taking place across the country. One session that they told me about stands out in particular, a discussion led by Terry Grier, who is superintendent of Guilford County NC, and the 2008 North Carolina Superintendent of the Year.

Grier spoke about a program in Guilford County (near Greensboro) called Mission Possible. Mission Possible is a district-based teacher incentive program that launched during the 2006-2007 school year. The program is designed to attract and retain effective teachers in high-poverty, low-performing schools in Guilford County, and includes financial incentives to recruit teachers and reward performance.


Under the program, teachers receive a $2,500 bonus if their students' test scores improve one standard error from the average; they receive a $4,000 bonus if the scores improve 1.5 standard errors from the average.


The 2006-07 pilot of Mission Possible included 20 schools, 383 faculty and $4.3 million in funding. During the first year of Mission Possible, 25% of schools met academic progress goals for the first time and 245 of the faculty received performance incentives of $268,250.


What's more, in the 2007 hiring season, the number of teacher applications went from 7,501 to 10,509 due to interest in the Mission Possible incentive program. Teacher retention also improved, from 62% to 87%. Now that's progress!


At the ED Trust conference, Grier told a story of the day he proposed the performance pay plan to the teachers. Over 50 teachers stood up and complained about the unjustness of the program. He listened and sympathized and then said he would scrap the plan if he could get volunteers to work in the high-need schools. Nobody volunteered and the plan moved forward.


I'm a former superintendent myself, and I admire Grier for his leadership. Faced with staffing challenges and failing schools, he found a way to reward and retain effective teachers and raise student achievement. Guilford County is an excellent example of how performance pay plans for teachers can be successful, with teacher investment and support. Tomorrow, I'm going to tell you a bit more about how I think a president can provide additional leadership so that all schools can experience the gains of Guilford County.