Efforts to attract and retain effective educators in high-poverty public schools have had limited

success. Dallas ISD addressed this challenge with information produced by its evaluation system

to offer large, compensating differentials to highly effective teachers willing to work in its

lowest-achievement schools. The Accelerating Campus Excellence (ACE) program resulted in

immediate and sustained achievement increases. The improvements were dramatic, bringing

average achievement in the previously lowest performing schools close to the district average.

When ACE stipends are largely eliminated, a substantial fraction of highly effective teachers

leaves, and test scores fall. This highlights the central importance of performance-based

incentives.