Colorado Exploring Incentives for Math and Science Teachers

Colorado leaders want to encourage more college students to go into science and teaching and two recent proposals, coming from Governor Bill Owens and the state's Commission on Higher Education, are designed to do just that.

In Owens' proposed FY 2002 budget for education, announced on Dec. 6, $51.3 million will be allotted in teacher pay incentives to allow principals to reward outstanding teaching, to offer recruitment bonuses to encourage Colorado's best teachers to serve in schools with unsatisfactory academic performance, and to offer recruitment and retention bonuses in hard-to-recruit subjects including math, science and special education.

Also, the Commission on Higher Education has proposed $2,000 in loan forgiveness per year to those college students who choose to teach in science, math, and special education. Students would be eligible for three years of debt relief, up to $6,000 total. For a position to be classified as difficult to fill, it must have had fewer than five applicants.

According to Jeanne Adkins, Director of policy and planning for the Commission, the new teacher encouragement program is a five-year pilot project with the goal of serving 1,226 new teachers with first-year funding set for $500,000.

Additional information on the Governor's education proposals can be found at: http://www.state.co.us/owenspress/12-06-00a.htm