Alan Duncan, Chairman, Guilford County School Board

What are the issues?

Guilford County is the third largest school district in North Carolina serving more than 71,000 students at 120 schools. The Guilford County School system tries its best to retain its 10,000 employees, with partial success.

Former Guilford County Schools Superintendent Terry Grier had trouble attracting experienced teachers and principals to the district's 30 high-poverty schools. "We went an entire year without a single, certified math teacher at one middle school," he confirms. "We had an elementary school with all new teachers in grades three, four, and five. We had schools that had four different principals in four years."

They hired all new teachers--for every class, every term.

Amy Holcombe, Senior Director Mission Possible and Innovative Projects

What are they doing?

Guilford County is the first school system in the state to pilot an alternative salary structure at this level. They use monetary incentives to lure teachers to work at 30 of the lowest performing schools, often the poorest schools as well. The most successful educators can earn up to $18,000 more a year.

• Recruitment incentives lure prospective teachers with $2,500 to $10,000 more per year based on position, grade, and course taught.
  
  
• Teachers can gain bonuses ranging from $2,500 to $4,000 a year by raising test scores on certain grade levels and subjects. These incentives are available to kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers; sixth- through eighth-grade teachers of language arts, reading or math; high school math and English I teachers; curriculum facilitators; and principals. Principals earn an additional $5,000 if their schools meet No Child Left Behind goals.
  
  
• Teachers and administrators receive ongoing specialized training and get paid for it. Any time teachers take a Mission Possible workshop after hours or on the weekend, they receive a stipend at the rate of $75 per 6-hour day. A teacher can earn another $4,000 by passing a two-week summer math course.

To get experienced principals into Mission Possible schools, Grier offers an extra $5,000 for elementary school teachers, $7,500 for middle school teachers, and $10,000 for high school algebra teachers. "You can make an additional $18,000, plus we give you a free laptop computer, if you teach math in one of our six Mission Possible high schools," Grier says.

"This was very controversial when we first started talking about Mission Possible," admits Dr. Eric Becoats, Chief of Staff, "but we knew we had to something different."

"When you're told you'll get an extra $10,000 a year for doing the same thing you are doing now, it's hard to turn down. It's a wonderful thing. Kids are kids." says Christopher Wilder, Math Teacher. Wilder teaches in one of the Guilford County Schools, where teachers previously turned down those same job offers.

"It adds up for this math teacher who grabbed a big bonus just for taking the job," affirms Amy Holcombe, Director of the Mission Possible Schools.

Schools also have reduced class sizes. "Teachers in these schools not only have more planning time, but class size is limited to 15 students from kindergarten to third grade," Grier says. "No middle or high school has a math class with more than 20 students."

As reported in the 2006-07 GCS Progress Report, in the fall of 2006, the U.S. Department of Education provided an $8 million grant to expand the Guilford County School Mission Possible initiative to include an additional seven schools as Mission Possible programs in 2007-08.

Also in 2006, the University of North Carolina (UNC) system and Action Greensboro awarded Guilford County Schools a $2 million grant to pilot a Math Incentive program at selected high schools. This Math Pilot, called "Cumulative Effect," includes Mission Possible high schools and two additional high schools to be launched in 2007-08.

Christopher Wilder, Mission Possible Teacher, Dudley High School

How does this make a difference?

Teacher recruitment, a process that typically yielded many "No's" to job offers, is a success.

"We opened the school year with zero vacancies in our Mission Possible schools. This is the first time we've ever done that," claims Amy Holcombe, Senior Director of Mission Possible and Innovative Projects. "Every single position was filled and I think that's because of the incentives we had to offer."

According to former Superintendent Terry Grier, in May of 2007 174 applicants offered to teach math, compared to just seven the year before. "In 2000, we were ranked 13th in teacher pay. We are number 1 today ," offers Grier.

Additionally, student performance is increasing significantly. Guilford County Schools met the federal testing targets of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)* for the first time in years. When school started in 2007, 3 or 4 of the Mission Possible schools made AYP for the first time since they implemented the initiatives.

Former Superintendent Grier declares, "Our results speak for themselves. 78 percent of our high schools made AYP this year. And, that is significantly above almost double the state average."

The following chart shows how Guilford County Schools fare on their AYP results for 2006 and 2007 compared to other school systems.

The Guilford County Schools Mission Possible program receives great deal of publicity, including the following media:

• National Public Radio (NPR) (an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news and entertainment programming)
  
  
• WUNC (a North Carolina Public Radio station)
  
  
• WKRG (a CBS affiliate in Mobile, AL)
  
  
• WSLS (a NBC affiliate in Roanoke, VA)
  
  
• Newsweek (an international news weekly magazine)
  
  
• The New York Times (one of the largest metropolitan newspapers in the United States)
  
  
• The News & Observer (a daily newspaper in Raleigh, NC)
  
  
• The Urban Educator (a monthly newsletter sent from the Council of Great City Schools)

Additionally, in March 2008, Candace Crawford, Senior Associate, Teacher Quality Education Trust from Washington, D.C. visited with Mission Possible senior administration, teachers, parents, and principals. According to the Guilford County Schools March 14, 2008 Newsbrief, the Education Trust is interested in the impact of the Mission Possible program on teacher quality and student academic achievement.