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Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has invited 169 schools in 57 school divisions throughout the state that have trouble attracting and retaining experienced teachers to participate in his Virginia Performance-Pay Incentives (VPPI) initiative [PDF file].

The initiative will provide $3 million in state funds to reward teachers in difficult-to-staff schools who earn exemplary rankings during the 2011-2012 school year. The most that any individual teacher may receive in performance pay is $5,000.

"Teachers who make a commitment to students in hard-to-staff urban and rural schools, despite circumstances that often prompt colleagues to seek assignments elsewhere, deserve our admiration, and when they succeed in raising the achievement of students in these schools, their performance should be rewarded," McDonnell said.

To be eligible to participate in the initiative, a school must meet at least four of eight criteria associated with schools that face challenges in recruiting and retaining effective teachers. The eight criteria are related to the following factors: accreditation, average attendance, percentage of students in special education, percentage of limited-English proficient students, percentage of teachers with provisional licensure, percentage of special education teachers with provisional licensure, percentage of first-year teachers, and the number of first-year teachers in a critical-shortage area.

"The evaluation guidelines and performance standards awaiting final approval by the Board of Education on April 28 will ensure that performance-pay decisions are fair for all teachers and based on objective criteria," said Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright. "Administrators in the participating divisions will be trained in the implementation of the board's performance standards and evaluation criteria."

In order to receive funding, schools must implement a comprehensive teacher evaluation system aligned with performance standards and evaluation systems approved by the Board of Education, and at least 40 percent of teacher evaluations must be based on student academic growth.

Federal support for performance-pay programs is also available through a $59.8 million School Improvement Grant that Virginia received in April of 2010.

"All told, the funding available for performance pay represents an opportunity to provide meaningful incentives and rewards for exemplary teachers in a significant number of Virginia schools, and, in the long term, the results of these pilot programs will tell us a lot about the potential for performance pay to improve teacher quality and raise student achievement," McDonnell said.

Applications from interested school divisions are due on June 15, and award amounts will be announced this summer.