The Impact of Incentives to Recruit and Retain Teachers in “Hard-to-Staff” Subjects: An Analysis of the Florida Critical Teacher Shortage Program

We investigated the effects of a statewide program designed to increase the supply of teachers in “hard-to-staff” areas. The Florida Critical Teacher Shortage Program (FCTSP) had three elements: (a) it provided loan forgiveness to teachers who were certified and taught in designated shortage areas; (b) it compensated teachers for the tuition cost of taking courses to become certified in a designated shortage area; and (c) for a single year, it gave bonuses to high school teachers who were certified and taught in a designated subject area. Employing a difference-in-difference estimator, we find that the loan forgiveness program decreased attrition of teachers in shortage areas, although the effects varied by subject. Allowing for variation in the size of payments, we find that the effects were more pronounced when loan-forgiveness payments were more generous. A triple-difference estimate indicated the bonus program also substantially reduced the likelihood of teachers leaving the public school sector. A panel probit analysis reveals that the tuition-reimbursement program had modest positive effects on the likelihood a teacher would become certified in a designated shortage area. We also present qualitative evidence that loan-forgiveness recipients were of higher quality (as measured by value added) than nonrecipients who taught in the same subject but were not certified and thus ineligible.