State Capitol Week in Review

LITTLE ROCK – More than 4,200 Arkansas teachers will receive merit bonuses averaging $3,325 as part of an incentive program created two years ago to retain the best teachers and recruit them in subject areas that are most in demand.
The incentive program is part of the LEARNS Act, a sweeping series of education reforms that were proposed by the governor and enacted by the legislature. It raised starting salaries for teachers from $36,000 to $50,000.
Last year fewer than 3,000 teachers received bonuses, which averaged $3,299. Last year the state spent about $9.8 million on incentive bonuses and this year it will spend $14.2 million.
To be eligible, a teacher must have three years’ experience. One category is to show outstanding growth in student performance. Another is to teach in a subject that has a shortage of teachers. Those are foreign languages, secondary mathematics, secondary science, middle school mathematics, middle school science and special education.
Teachers also can qualify for bonuses if they teach in areas with a shortage of teachers, and if they act as mentors to aspiring teachers. Teachers can receive up to $10,000 in bonuses if they qualify in more than one of the categories, and this year 76 teachers will receive the maximum amount. Last year 47 teachers received $10,000.
This year the median bonus is $2,500, meaning the same number of teachers received more than that amount as received less than that amount. Last year the median bonus was $3,000.
This year 831 teachers received a bonus of more than $5,000, compared to 52 teachers receiving that much last year.

The state will send money to school districts by June 30 for the incentive bonuses to be distributed to teachers.
Arkansas has almost 33,000 certified classroom teachers. Retention has improved since the pandemic, but still remains a challenge for school districts. According to a recent report by the Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas, last year 12.8 percent of teachers left their classroom. They either left the teaching profession, transferred to a different school district or switched to a non-teaching job within their district.
According to the university report, 77 percent of Arkansas teachers remained in their jobs, while 2.7 percent retired. The retiring teachers were part of the 9.2 percent who left the teaching profession entirely. The analysis showed that 3.6 percent switched to a non-teaching job within the district and 10.1 percent moved to a different teaching job. Of those, 4.7 percent moved to another job within their district and 5.4 percent took a teaching job at another district.
Retention rates for teachers this year were very similar to last year’s rates, and still not quite as good as before the COVID pandemic. For example, the retention rate in 2017-2018 was 79 percent, or two percentage points higher than this year’s rate.
Retention rates in southern and eastern Arkansas tend to be lower. Seven school districts in Arkansas had a teacher retention rate below 65 percent, and five of those districts are in southern and eastern parts of the state.
This year’s rate of teacher retirements is close to traditional rates.