This paper provides a brief overview of the teacher labour supply problems across OECD countries and focus on evidence from the UK to illustrate the arguments in a more detailed way by referring to the considerable research which has been devoted to this policy issue.
This paper examines how the economic cycle affects the market for teachers. It begins by defining and measuring the business cycle in the UK. Following the identification of the business cycle in the UK, we present a simple model of the teacher labour market. We also look at how, theoretically, the supply of teachers could be affected by the economic cycle to enable us to set out a clear model of the way the teacher labour market functions. In addition, the different concepts and measurement of teacher supply and teacher shortage are explored in this paper. We then review the literature examining the influence of macroeconomic indicators on the supply of teachers and other qualified workers both in the UK and USA. From this review, it is evident that this literature is fairly small and relatively inconclusive. Cross section evidence suggests that relative wages in teaching compared to alternative professions have a significant impact on the likelihood of graduates choosing to teach, although the impact depends upon the market situation at the time. Time series evidence on teacher supply is limited.
This paper provides a critical survey of the literature on dealing with public sector labor markets. It discusses the research by economists on wage determination in the state and local sector (including the effects of unions), on the estimation of compensating wage differentials for pecuniary and nonpecuniary job characteristics, on the effects of unions on productivity, on the estimation of public sector demand and for labor functions, on dispute resolution, on public/private pay differentials, and on gender and race discrimination in the public sector. Numerous suggestions for future research are offered.
This paper argues that public sector labor relations is best understood in a framework that focuses on unions` ability to shift demand curves rather than to raise wages, as is the case in the private sector.
Empirical research bears out the conventional wisdom that teacher quality is the key schooling resource influencing student achievement, so it is not surprising that policy makers attempt to influence it by regulating admission into the teacher labor market through licensure systems. Most of these systems require teachers to graduate from an approved teacher training institution and pass one or more tests, the notion being that these preservice requirements ensure a basic level of teacher competence. A criticism, however, is that these requirements dissuade talented individuals from attempting to become teachers, thereby lowering the quality of teachers in the workforce. It is shocking how little we actually know about key aspects of the teacher licensure–teacher quality equation. The great majority of the empirical literature on licensure speaks to one crucial link in the teacher licensure–teacher quality equation: the correlation between licensure requirements and student achievement. In general this literature suggests only weak links between specific licensure requirements and student achievement. Far less evidence exists on the impact of licensure on the pool of potential teachers, or who school district hiring officials would employ in the face of fewer requirements, or the absence of requirements altogether.
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The extensive investigation of the contribution of teachers to student achievement produces two generally accepted results. First, there is substantial variation in teacher quality as measured by the value added to achievement or future academic attainment or earnings. Second, variables often used to determine entry into the profession and salaries, including post-graduate schooling, experience, and licensing examination scores, appear to explain little of the variation in teacher quality so measured, with the exception of early experience. Together these findings underscore explicitly that observed teacher characteristics do not represent teacher quality. From the earliest work on education productions (James S. Coleman et al. 1966), interpretations of research on teachers often confused the effects of specific teacher characteristics with the overall contribution of teachers. The consistent finding over four decades has been that the most commonly used indicators of quality differences are not closely related to achievement gain, leading some to question whether teacher quality really matters (see the review in Eric A. Hanushek and Steven G. Rivkin 2006). Education production function research on the measurement of teacher value added to student achievement represents a shift from a research design that focuses on the link between student outcomes and specific teacher characteristics to a research framework that uses a less parametric approach to identify overall teacher contributions to learning. Using administrative databases, some covering all of the teachers in a state, such research provides strong support for the existence of substantial differences in teacher effectiveness, even within schools. Although this approach circumvents the need to identify specific teacher characteristics related to quality, the less parametric approach introduces additional complications and has sparked an active debate on the measurement and subsequent policy use of estimated teacher value added.
Virtually everybody interested in improving the performance of schools concentrates on the importance of teacher quality. Yet policy recommendations related to teacher quality frequently do not incorporate existing evidence about performance. This paper reviews the various strands of research related to teacher quality including: the role of aggregate salaries, the supply of teachers with different characteristics, the relationship between teacher characteristics and student achievement, and direct estimates of the value-added of teachers. This evidence is then related to current policy initiatives as generally bounded by recommendations to tighten up on teacher qualifications and recommendations to loosen up on entry with stronger subsequent incentives.
This chapter analyzes the design of incentive schemes in education while reviewing empirical studies that evaluate performance pay programs for educators. Several themes emerge. First, education officials should not use one assessment system to create both educator performance metrics and measures of student achievement. To mitigate incentives for coaching, incentive systems should employ assessments that vary in both format and item content. Separate no-stakes assessments provide more reliable information about student achievement because they create no incentives for educators to take hidden actions that contaminate student test scores. Second, relative performance schemes are too rare in education. These schemes are more difficult to manipulate than systems built around psychometric or subjective performance standards. Third, assessment-based incentive schemes are mechanisms that complement rather than substitute for systems that promote parental choice, e.g. vouchers and charter schools.
While compensation accounts for roughly 90% of K-12 instructional costs, there is little evidence of rational design in these systems. This chapter reviews the nature of teacher compensation systems in developed economies and research on their performance effects. Since these compensation schemes typically arise out of collective negotiations, this chapter also surveys the smaller literature on the effect of teacher collective bargaining on earnings and school outcomes.
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