Evidence shows how to retain Alaska teachers: higher compensation and broad funding, not bonuses

A school bus drives along a snow covered road on Nov. 4, 2022 in Eagle River, Alaska. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Legislature recently overwhelmingly passed an education budget that better funds our schools and also places the responsibility for recruiting and retaining teachers right where it belongs, in the school districts. The governor, by threatening a veto if he doesn’t get his way, seems intent on forcing the state to implement a teacher bonus program. The governor has said that the bonuses should be implemented for three years to see if they will work to improve teacher recruiting and retention. In the governor’s press conference he repeatedly referenced the editorial in the Anchorage Daily News supporting bonuses. In that editorial the editors asked who wouldn’t want a bonus. That is not the right question. It should be, who will stay if they are offered a bonus. The answer is that bonuses retain very few, if any, teachers in the long term.

There has been a lot of research on the teacher recruiting and turnover issues, they are not unique to Alaska. Massachusetts tried a signing bonus program offering $20,000. While it did help to a degree, the dropout rate of all those hired after three years was 46%. In North Carolina bonuses only made teachers 15% less likely to leave and there was no positive long-term effect on retention. When the bonus was gone, so was the reduction in intent to leave. In a study of Denver’s public schools retention rates only increased by 2.1%. In a 2020 research paper published by the Oxford Review of Education, a comprehensive look at research on teacher recruitment and retention included 52 separate studies. The overall effect of bonuses and incentives ranged from 12% to 25% reduction in the likelihood teachers will leave but the moment the incentives were gone so were the reductions in intent to leave. Clearly bonuses and incentives have not been shown to be a long-term solution to the recruitment and turnover problem.

The obvious question is, “Why won’t bonuses and incentives work to decrease turnover?” It is because unless the basic minimums for compensation have been met, other employment opportunities are more attractive and turnover goes up. When looking at why people are willing to stay or not, one needs to understand what is driving their behavior. One of the more robust findings in management is that insufficient pay leads to higher turnover and lower motivation. Money will not result in sustained motivation, but if pay is insufficient and employees are dissatisfied with compensation it will result in increased turnover. Fredrick Hertzberg discovered that the things that motivate people are separate and distinct from those that dissatisfy them. The dissatisfiers he called hygienes. It is important to note that meeting the minimums to prevent dissatisfaction only results in no dissatisfaction. Satisfaction with a job and motivation comes from growth, achievement, recognition, autonomy and advancement. The things that can dissatisfy employees include pay, policy and administration, work conditions, and supervision. If employees are dissatisfied, they are prone to be less motivated and more likely to leave. 

In the report created for the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (the product of the Alaska Governor’s Working Group on Teacher Retention and Recruitment) titled: Teacher Retention and Recruitment Survey Results, in table 1.1 we find that compensation, retirement benefits, and healthcare benefits were all in the top five issues of importance to teachers in this state. For teachers pay was No. 1. Interestingly, the Teacher Retention and Action Plan, also a product of the working group, acknowledges the primacy of compensation and then punts rather than calling for the increases that will address this problem. In the report, eight of the top 10 items of greatest importance to the teachers are all hygienes or dissatisfiers. In other words, the basic minimums to attract and retain employees have not been, and are not being, met. In fact, according to the Institute for Education Sciences , during the past nine years teacher turnover in Alaska has ranged from 18% to 33%. That means that the teacher turnover rate for Alaska has been up to five times higher than for the nation as a whole.

It is clear what needs to be done. To permanently reduce turnover, the entire compensation package for teachers needs to be massively improved. Turnover rates from 18% to 33% for the past nine years are a clear demonstration that compensation, increasing class sizes, and other working conditions are driving turnover. It has been shown repeatedly that teacher turnover has a negative effect on student outcomes. If we take effective steps to reduce teacher turnover it will improve student outcomes. If we reduce class sizes it will improve student outcomes. If we fund the gifted programs, optional programs, and charter schools it will improve student outcomes. To continue to do what we have been doing and expecting turnover to go down and student outcomes to improve is not rational.

If the governor gets his way and a bonus program is implemented instead of solving the real problem there will be a brief improvement in recruiting and retention followed by an exodus when the program ends and we will be right back where we are now. There is no reason to think Alaska will be any different than any other place that has tried bonuses and incentives and failed to attract and retain teachers for the long run. If the long-term strategic plan for education in this state is to be a training ground for new teachers and to see them leave for other opportunities in three years, then what the governor is proposing is a sure winner. However, if what we want to do is attract and retain the best and brightest teachers for the long run and improve student outcomes, then the Legislature has it right, increasing the BSA and letting the superintendents do their jobs is the way to get it done.

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