As school districts across the country struggle to recruit and retain qualified teachers, policymakers have increasingly turned to financial incentives as potential solutions. Texas launched the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) in 2019 in hopes of retaining highly effective teachers, particularly in high-need districts. A recent policy brief published by Texas Tech University researcher J. Jacob Kirksey examines the effects of the program on student achievement and retention of effective teachers.
Under TIA, the state provides funding to school districts based on the number of designated teachers they employ, with larger allotments for teachers serving rural and high-poverty schools. Designations may be awarded through locally established criteria or by becoming National Board certified. Districts must spend at least 90 percent of each allotment on compensation for their designated teachers and instructional staff, while the remaining 10 percent may support program implementation and administration. Today, more than 800 Texas school districts participate in TIA, and the state distributed more than $480 million during the 2024–25 school year alone. Eligible teachers can receive performance-based salary increases of up to $36,000 annually, guaranteed for five years after earning a designation.
Using Texas administrative records, Kirksey analyzes nearly 8,000 district-year observations from 2016 through 2024, providing four years of data before and after TIA implementation. To estimate the program's effects, the study compares outcomes in adopting districts before and after TIA with outcomes in similar districts that had not yet implemented the program. It is worth noting that Kirksey discloses consulting with several Texas districts implementing TIA, but asserts that these relationships did not influence the study’s data, analyses, or conclusions.
Student achievement increased after districts adopted TIA, and the gains grew stronger over time. On average after four years of implementation, student achievement rose by 0.09–0.10 standard deviations—equivalent to roughly one-third of a year of additional learning. By the third year after implementation, math and reading achievement gains were approximately six times as large as those observed during the first year.
TIA also reduced teacher turnover, and here again its effects grew more pronounced over time. Overall teacher turnover in participating districts declined by 1.1 percentage points, and by the fourth year, turnover was 2 percentage points lower in TIA districts than in comparable non-TIA districts. Because the gains appeared district-wide, it seems the program may improve student achievement and teacher retention more broadly, not just increase the pay of designated teachers.
The program was particularly successful at retaining highly effective teachers. Beginning in the third year after implementation, teachers in the top third of effectiveness based on their value-added scores were 1 to 2 percentage points less likely to leave the Texas teaching workforce than similarly effective teachers in non-TIA districts, a roughly 20 percent decline in annual attrition. In contrast, TIA had no measurable effect on turnover among teachers in the bottom third of effectiveness, suggesting the program specifically improved retention among the state's strongest teachers.
Although the study does not discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, the timing provides important context for interpreting the findings. Nationally, teacher turnover surged during and immediately after the shift to remote learning, making it a particularly challenging period in which to implement a retention policy. Even so, TIA's positive effects continued to grow over time despite the disruption. It seems that the program remained effective even during an unprecedented period of instability.
An open question remains whether TIA also improves the distribution of effective teachers across schools. While Kirksey’s study finds that the program helps retain high-performing teachers, it does not examine whether those teachers are more likely to transfer to high-need campuses. Other recent research suggests that although TIA increases teacher mobility, the financial incentives may not always be large enough to encourage effective teachers to move into the most disadvantaged schools.
Still, the findings also reinforce a broader lesson in education policy: reforms often require time before their full benefits emerge. More than producing immediate results, TIA's impacts on student achievement and teacher retention strengthened with each year of implementation. This suggests that policymakers should view teacher incentive programs as long-term investments rather than short-term fixes. While one-time signing or retention bonuses may temporarily attract teachers, sustained, multi-year compensation incentives appear more likely to improve retention and, ultimately, student achievement.
SOURCE: J. Jacob Kirksey, “Texas’s Teacher Incentive Allotment is Improving Student Achievement and Keeping Top Teachers in Classrooms,” Texas Tech University (Spring 2026).
