IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/umc/wpaper/0601.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Teacher Pay Adequate?

Author

Abstract

In school finance lawsuits plaintiffs often claim that pay levels are not sufficient to recruit teachers who can deliver constitutionally-mandated levels of educational services. In this paper I consider several ways in which one might bring economic theory and data to bear on that question. I conclude that at present, and at least for the near term, education research cannot prescribe an adequate level of school spending on teachers, whether in the form of pay, benefits, or professional training, that can reliability predict a target level of student performance. If courts are predisposed to intervene in this matter, a more reasonable standard for adequacy is whether available revenues, when spent in an efficient manner, are sufficient to staff classrooms with appropriately-certified teachers in a flexible licensing regime that satisfies both state and federal teacher quality standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Podgursky, 2006. "Is Teacher Pay Adequate?," Working Papers 0601, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    • Handle: RePEc:umc:wpaper:0601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mh4-v9BXYM9AhZMe-_iigWZEF64cUs83/view?usp=sharing
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2004. "The Impact of Teacher Training on Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from School Reform Efforts in Chicago," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    3. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin & Daniel M. O'Brien, 2005. "The Market for Teacher Quality," Discussion Papers 04-025, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    5. Donald Boyd & Hamilton Lankford & Susanna Loeb, 2003. "The Draw of Home: How Teachers' Preferences for Proximity Disadvantage Urban Schools," NBER Working Papers 9953, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dale Ballou & Michael Podgursky, 1996. "Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number tptq, December.
    7. Darius Lakdawalla, 2001. "The Declining Quality of Teachers," NBER Working Papers 8263, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Susanna Loeb & Marianne E. Page, 2000. "Examining The Link Between Teacher Wages And Student Outcomes: The Importance Of Alternative Labor Market Opportunities And Non-Pecuniary Variation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, August.
    9. Caroline M. Hoxby & Andrew Leigh, 2004. "Pulled Away or Pushed Out? Explaining the Decline of Teacher Aptitude in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 236-240, May.
    10. Donald Boyd & Hamilton Lankford & Susanna Loeb & James Wyckoff, 2005. "The draw of home: How teachers' preferences for proximity disadvantage urban schools," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 113-132.
    11. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    12. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    13. Dale Ballou & Michael Podgursky, 1998. "Teacher recruitment and retention in public and private schools," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 393-417.
    14. Podgursky, Michael & Monroe, Ryan & Watson, Donald, 2004. "The academic quality of public school teachers: an analysis of entry and exit behavior," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 507-518, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sims, David P., 2011. "Suing for your supper? Resource allocation, teacher compensation and finance lawsuits," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1034-1044, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scafidi Benjamin & Sjoquist David L. & Stinebrickner Todd R., 2006. "Do Teachers Really Leave for Higher Paying Jobs in Alternative Occupations?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-44, December.
    2. Emiliana Vegas & Ilana Umansky, 2005. "Improving Teaching and Learning through Effective Incentives : What Can We Learn from Education Reforms in Latin America?," World Bank Publications - Reports 8694, The World Bank Group.
    3. Eric Hanushek & Steven Rivkin, "undated". "Constrained Job Matching: Does Teacher Job Search Harm Disadvantaged Urban Schools?," Discussion Papers 09-011, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Gilpin, Gregory A., 2012. "Teacher salaries and teacher aptitude: An analysis using quantile regressions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 15-29.
    5. Bourdon, Jean & Frölich, Markus & Michaelowa, Katharina, 2007. "Teacher Shortages, Teacher Contracts and their Impact on Education in Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 2844, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Vegas, E & Ganimian, A. J., 2013. "Theory and Evidence on Teacher Policies in Developed and Developing Countries," Working Paper 104291, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    7. Eunice S. Han, 2020. "The Myth of Unions’ Overprotection of Bad Teachers: Evidence from the District–Teacher Matched Data on Teacher Turnover," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 316-352, April.
    8. Sean Corcoran & Dan Goldhaber, 2013. "Value Added and Its Uses: Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(3), pages 418-434, July.
    9. Eric A. Hanushek, 2008. "Incentives for Efficiency and Equity in the School System," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(s1), pages 5-27, May.
    10. Marine de Talancé, 2015. "Better Teachers, Better Results? Evidence from Rural Pakistan," Working Papers DT/2015/21, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    11. Douglas Harris & Tim R. Sass, 2006. "The Effects of Teacher Training on Teacher Value Added," Working Papers wp_2006_03_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    12. Elizabeth Webster & Mark Wooden & Gary Marks, 2004. "Reforming the Labour Market for Australian Teachers," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n28, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Limor Hatsor, 2014. "Allocation of Resources in Educational Production: The Budget Puzzle," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(6), pages 854-883, December.
    14. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Nathaniel Hilger & Emmanuel Saez & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Danny Yagan, 2011. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1593-1660.
    15. Cowen, Joshua M. & Butler, J.S. & Fowles, Jacob & Streams, Megan E. & Toma, Eugenia F., 2012. "Teacher retention in Appalachian schools: Evidence from Kentucky," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 431-441.
    16. Winters, Marcus A. & Dixon, Bruce L. & Greene, Jay P., 2012. "Observed characteristics and teacher quality: Impacts of sample selection on a value added model," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 19-32.
    17. Marigee Bacolod, 2006. "Do Alternative Opportunities Matter? The Role of Female Labor Markets in the Decline of Teacher Quality," Working Papers 06-22, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Buddin, Richard & Zamarro, Gema, 2009. "Teacher qualifications and student achievement in urban elementary schools," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 103-115, September.
    19. Fraenkel, Rebecca Cannon, 2022. "Local labor markets and job match quality: Teachers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Gianna Barbieri & Piero Cipollone & Paolo Sestito, 2007. "Labour Market for Teachers: Demographic Characteristics and Allocative Mechanisms," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 66(3), pages 335-373, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teacher compensation; School finance;

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:umc:wpaper:0601. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chao Gu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edumous.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.