Committee Recommends Incentives To Retain High-Quality Teachers

A new report on high school graduation rates suggests an innovative way to keep quality teachers in the state’s most challenging schools. 

The CT Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights began by looking at the disparity in graduation rates between white and minority students. Overall, nearly 80% of Connecticut’s high school students graduated in 2009.  But behind that number you find more than 85% of white students finished high school compared with only 66% of African Americans   and 58% of Hispanic students.  

The report says high-quality teaching remains key to academic success, but many urban schools have a hard time retaining experienced teachers. 

Richard Wilson of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut chaired the committee that published the report. He says the state should consider incentives to keep great teachers in challenging schools."One example might be to allow teachers to retire early after 30 years of service instead of 37 years, if at least 10 of those years are spent in underperforming or troubled schools."

Nationwide nearly a third of all public high school students – and nearly half of all black and Latino students fail to graduate from high school.