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To lure highly qualified teachers to low-performing schools, the Mobile County, Alabama, school board did what a small but growing number of districts are considering: pay teachers more money for working in what are considered less attractive jobs. As school districts are more pressured to raise achievement among all student groups, more are luring their best teachers to their worst schools. In recent years, both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have endorsed incentives to get high-performing teachers into hard-to-staff schools. In Mobile, teachers taking the offer can earn up to $40,000 in bonuses over five years, including a $4,000 signing bonus each fall and another $4,000 "award for success" at the end of each school year if students perform well. The average salary of a Mobile County teacher is $37,200 a year, says Paul Tate, assistant superintendent for human resources. To be chosen to work at the designated schools, teachers must be considered highly qualified. That means they passed a standardized test in their subject area or have taken a certain number of college courses in the subject they are teaching and have at least one year of teaching experience.

Because ninth grade is such a tough year for many students, some school districts have created special academies or other programs to provide special attention to students in the first year of high school. Studies show that ninth-graders have the most discipline incidents and retentions, and are most likely to drop out. In this paper, the author describes the programs at several ninth-grade academies in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New York, and North Carolina.