The Impact of a 10, 000 Bonus on Special Education Teacher Shortages in Hawai‘i

We study the impact of a bonus policy in Hawai‘i Public Schools that raised the salaries of all special education teachers by 10, 000. We estimate that this policy reduced the proportion of vacant special education teaching positions relative to general education positions by 32% and the proportion of special education positions that were vacant or filled by an unlicensed teacher by 35%. These impacts were largest in historically hard-to-staff schools in which all teachers received additional bonuses. The policy did not have significant effects on special education teacher retention; instead, the impacts of the policy were driven almost entirely by an increase in the number of general education teachers in the state who moved into open special education teaching positions.