This paper provides an extensive review of the most relevant issues involved in the management of teacher demand and supply at the pre-tertiary level. First, it proposes a conceptual framework for distinguishing among, defining and relating the different relevant factors. Second, it identifies trends and policy concerns regarding the quality of the teaching workforce across the OECD area. Third, it provides an account of current empirical evidence on numerous aspects (e.g. class size, reward structure, working conditions, teacher education, certification procedures, organisation of schools, evaluation systems, structure of labour market, teaching and learning practices) impacting on the teaching profession. Some concerns about maintaining an adequate supply of good quality teachers emerge. It is the case that in a great number of countries the age profile of teachers is skewed towards the older end of the age-range and signs point to a recent worsening of the situation. In addition, the relative attractiveness of the profession, as far as the salary dimension is concerned, has declined substantially in the most recent years. Other evidence indicates that, at least in some countries, a substantial share of the teaching workforce does not hold a regular teaching license and the proportion of "out-of-field" teaching assignments is strikingly high in many subject key areas. It is also emphasised that a teacher shortage is difficult to measure and raises quality as well as quantity concerns. Given that teacher quality is a critical factor in determining student learning, it is entirely appropriate that the educational authorities in the countries with the greatest difficulties develop strategies to guarantee a sufficient supply of quality teachers. This report identifies a broad set of policies that should be given serious consideration to achieve that objective. Finally, this paper also sheds light on the current availability of data on teachers at OECD and relevant data needs for a future quantitative analysis.
This paper provides new information about the interrelated issues of teacher turnover (both within and across school districts and inside and outside of teaching) and the importance of school characteristics using new administrative data on Georgia teachers and the elementary schools in which they teach. Simple descriptive statistics indicate that teachers are more likely to change schools if they begin their teaching careers in schools with lower student test scores, schools with lower income students, or schools that have higher proportions of minority students. A competing risks model of transitions out of first teaching jobs allows us to separate the importance of these highly correlated school characteristics. The estimates from the model imply that teachers are much more likely to exit schools with large proportions of minority students, and that the other bivariate statistical relationships associated with student test scores and poverty rates are largely spurious in nature. Thus we find that, while the notion that teachers are more likely to leave high poverty schools is correct, it occurs because teachers are more likely to leave a particular type of poor school - that which has a large proportion of minority students. A simple theoretical framework explores the conditions under which high turnover rates should be viewed as being indicative of lower school quality.
In this paper we examine one of the fundamental beliefs underlying education policy – that the majority of teacher attrition is caused by the attractiveness of higher-paying alternative occupations. Using unique data from the state of Georgia that are created by merging administrative data from the educational system with wage records from the Unemployment Insurance system, we find very strong evidence that this common perception is not correct. A simple theoretical framework indicates that correct information about what teachers do when they leave teaching is important from the standpoint of designing effective education policy and that the current existence of incorrect information may have quite harmful effects. The paper discusses why incorrect information of this type might arise and why it has been able to persist.
A dynamic, discrete choice framework with a flexible structure for unobserved heterogeneity is used to model the occupational decisions of individuals who are certified to teach in elementary and secondary schools. The model is estimated using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and is used to examine the effects of possible changes in the compensation policy for teachers.
Since 1970, the number of teachers per student rose while teacher quality apparently eroded. A model of school and voter decisions shows that an increase in the skill price for women may induce schools to hire additional teachers rather than better quality teachers. Estimation results indicate that the price of skill and alternative wage had offsetting effects on the teacher–pupil ratio. Increased demand for education therefore resulted in larger teacher–student ratios. In contrast, both the skill price and the alternative wage reduced teacher quality. Increased demand for education did not outweigh the combined price effect, and teacher quality fell.
Teaching salaries are commonly adjusted for the cost of living, but this incorrectly accounts for welfare differences across states. Adjusting for area amenities and opportunities, however, produces more accurate salary comparisons. Amenities and opportunities can be measured by the wage premium other workers in a state face. The two methods produce significant differences in state rankings. Additionally, salaries adjusted for alternative wages are strongly associated with student outcomes, while those adjusted for the cost of living are not. The method of adjustment also alters results from regressions that examine the effects of other policies, like unionization, on teacher salaries.
This paper aims toward a better understanding of the factors influencing the decision of young graduates who entered teaching to stay in that profession. The field of research covers secondary education teachers in the French-speaking community of Belgium. The data analyzed comes from an administrative database containing historical records of 50 000 individuals who started teaching between 1973 and 1996. The analysis is carried out assuming a proportional hazard model and using the discrete-time method initiated by Prentice and Gloeckler ( Biometrics , 1978, 34, pp. 57-67). One of the main results is that the risk of exit is dramatically more important during the first periods of employment. The fact that this risk tends also to increase over time suggests that the dropout rate among young recruits is higher now than it was in the past. Location and labour market conditions seem to be of little impact.The risk of exit is the same in rural and urban areas and across provinces wherein unemployment rates vary dramatically. Finally, the significant deterioration of pay conditions (in relative terms) since the mid-1980s has had no significant impact on the risk of exit. Of greater importance are supply-side (organizational) elements such as the level of centralization of recruitment decisions or the level of asymmetry between tenure and non-tenure personnel regarding job protection, access to full-time position, etc.
Teacher unions have fiercely fought public policy measures (e.g., vouchers, tuition tax credits) that might increase the proportion of students attending private schools. Yet increased competition in the educational service market should also lead to greater labor market competition, reducing any quasi-monopsony tendencies depressing teacher salaries. Using detailed data on over 600 Ohio school districts, we find that increased private school competition leads to higher salaries for public school teachers. It may be that union leaders disregard the interests of their members in trying to maximizing union size and power. An alternative interpretation is that unions sacrifice short-run income gains for their members in order to maintain long-term economic rents associated with substantial political power.
Previous work on understanding the determinants of average teacher salaries has focused on interstate variation. This study addresses determinants of intrastate variation in teacher salaries. Using the model developed by Walden and Newmark, average teacher salaries in North Carolina school districts are related to variation in the local cost-of-living, personal characteristics of teachers, job characteristics of the teaching positions, and local demand factors. A key finding is that, like interstate studies, we find local salaries are related to local cost-of-living measures. Also, after accounting for education and experience characteristics, local teacher salaries are higher in districts with a greater proportion of secondary teachers, in districts with larger average school sizes, and in districts with a greater demand for education.
This paper seeks to estimate the effect of teachers’ net marginal wages on their working hours, on the basis of a survey of Dutch teachers. The resulting uncompensated wage elasticity is significantly positive and has an average value of 0.2 for males and 0.4 for females. However, a general wage increase is a rather costly solution to teacher shortages. Alternatively, working full-time can be made attractive for part-time teachers by providing a premium for full-time teachers. This kind of premium provides part-time teachers with a stronger incentive to work full-time, as the negative income effect does not occur. Simulation results show that such a premium produces an effect that is almost seven times as large as a general wage increase.
In order to learn more about the wage elasticity of the teacher supply in Switzerland, this paper estimates wages for teachers and non-teachers. The data used are ten surveys of graduates of all Swiss universities for the period of 1981-1999. The data allows us to estimate the wage elasticity for entry wages of upper secondary school teachers. In the cases examined, the wage differential is highly significant and shows a wage elasticity for the teacher supply of 0.12% to 0.18%. This elasticity is substantially lower than what has been found in the literature for other countries. It is probably due to the fact that teachers’ salaries are generally high in Switzerland - teachers here enjoy a positive wage differential over those in other occupations, the opposite of what is normally the situation elsewhere.
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