Let the Market Decide

By thoroughly standardizing teacher pay, the single salary schedule suffers from a major flaw: It deprives the managers of public schools of the authority to adjust an individual teacher's pay to reflect both his performance and market realities. For instance, many schools have trouble recruiting teachers in fields that command high salaries outside of education, such as mathematics and the sciences. The rigidities of the single salary schedule prevent them from addressing this shortage in the obvious way—by raising pay in these specialties. The result: Public schools are often forced to hire unqualified candidates to teach math and science courses. Likewise, few school systems provide extra compensation to teachers who work with the most severely disadvantaged students. Without pay incentives to keep them in the toughest jobs, veteran teachers often use their seniority to transfer to the most attractive schools in the system, leaving the neediest children to be taught by the youngest and most inexperienced teachers

Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality

Ballou and Podgursky offer solid economic analysis on issues surrounding the debate over whether increasing salaries for teachers leads to a more qualified teaching workforce. The authors find little evidence to support the link between increased salaries and teacher quality, then address two questions: (1) What went wrong? and (2) Which reforms are likely to meet with increased success?https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1071/thumbnail.jp

NEPC Review: The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood

This NBER report concludes that teachers whose students tend to show high gains on their test scores (called &ldquo;high value-added teachers&rdquo;) also contribute to later student success in young adulthood, as indicated by outcomes such as college attendance and future earnings. To support this claim, it is not sufficient for researchers to show an observed association between teacher value-added and later outcomes in young adulthood. It is also necessary to rule out plausible alternative explanations &mdash; for example, that parents who did the most to promote their offspring&rsquo;s long-term success also endeavored to secure high value-added teachers for their children. This review explains that, for the most part, the evidence needed to rule out these alternatives is missing from the report. Thus, policymakers should tread cautiously in their reaction: the case has not been proved.</p

Pay for Performance in Public and Private Schools.”

Abstract Previous research on teacher merit pay has concluded that its failure is due to the complexity of teachers&apos; jobs and the need for teamwork and cooperation in schools. This research re-opens the issue by comparing the use of merit pay in public and private schools. Merit pay is used in a large number of private schools. Awards are not trivial; nor is it the case that merit pay is awarded to nearly everyone. Reasons for the failure of merit pay are not inherent in teaching, but are due to specific circumstances in public education, notably the opposition of teacher unions. [JEL I20

Do Public Schools Hire the Best Applicants?

Despite a surplus of candidates for most teaching jobs, a strong academic record does little for an applicant's job prospects. This does not appear to result from lukewarm interest on the part of such applicants or choosiness about the positions they accept. Administrators' lack of interest in these candidates may reflect the weakness of competitive pressures in public education. Policies intended to improve teacher quality need to consider incentives on both the demand and supply sides of the market. Copyright 1996, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rural Schools--Fewer Highly Trained Teachers and Special Programs, But Better Learning Environment

Rural schools are smaller than metro schools. Fewer rural than urban teachers have completed advanced degrees, and fewer rural students have access to advanced or remedial courses. The smaller size of rural schools maybe an advantage in other ways, however, including smaller classes, more attention from teachers, and a less stressful learning environment