How are teacher pension benefits funded? Under traditional plans, the full cost of career teachers' benefits far exceeds the contributions designated for them. The gap between the two has three pieces, which may (with some license) be mnemonically tagged the three R's of pension funding: "redistribution," "return," and…

Early care and education (ECE) programs for children prior to kindergarten in California are provided through a mixed delivery system that includes licensed home- and center-based programs as well as school settings. The requirements, experience, and supports for educators vary widely across settings, depending more on funding sources and…

If a rational system of teacher compensation, aimed at recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, were designed from scratch, it is unlikely it would bear any resemblance to the system that is currently in place. In this paper, the author takes a deep look into how the method of paying teachers evolved. He shows that compensation systems have…

Fundamental to updating a fixed-rate salary schedule for teachers is the reliance on a relevant labor market containing comparisons to other school districts--that is, object school districts, which can be chosen from a policy or empirical/efficiency perspective. As such, four relevant markets having roots in neoclassical economic…

About 12 percent of all charter schools have bargaining agreements. Why do charter schools unionize? What is in these charter school contracts? Can they be considered innovative or models for union reform? And how do they compare to traditional district/union teacher contracts? Center on Reinventing Public Education legal analyst Mitch Price…

This study examined the change in conditions over time for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) principals as they pursued a career as principals in the K-12 system in Los Angeles Unified School District. I compared the perceptions, motivations, and aspirations of AAPIs who became principals from 1970-1989 and from 2000-2011 to explore the…

To prepare this report, the Commission examined faculty salary data supplied by the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) systems. This report compares faculty salaries at California's public universities with faculty salaries at comparable institutions of higher education. Based on five-year trend projections,…

This study investigates 10-year trends in instructional faculty salaries by sex and rank for USF, five SUS Peers (UF, FSU, FIU, UCF, FAU) and eight National Peers (North Carolina State, Alabama-Birmingham, Illinois-Chicago, California-Irvine, SUNY-Stony Brook, SUNY-Buffalo, Cincinnati, Rutgers). Methods: Historical instructional faculty salary…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is due for reauthorization, and Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Chakkah Fattah have both proposed revisions to the comparability provision of the federal Title I program. Harkin's proposed legislation requires the use of per pupil expenditures, including actual teacher salaries, to demonstrate…

This report presents a summary of two 1972 reports that were issued by the California Agency for Educational Research to study teachers' salaries. It includes lowest, highest, and average salaries for instructors in 67 community colleges in California. The data are grouped according to size of district, and analyzed statistically. The range of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the similarities and differences between five key motivational factors: (a) new teacher induction, (b) noninduction mentor support in the early years of teaching, (c) salary and benefits, (d) working conditions, and (e) administrative support influential in retention of employment in…

In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for their universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help…

The evolution of California's attempts to determine college faculty salary comparability within and outside the state are chronicled and discussed, focusing on the difficulties inherent in the comparison. (MSE)

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California…

This report is the final report on faculty salaries at California's public universities for the current 2001-02 (current) and 2002-03 (budget) years. It contains a brief description of the methodology used to calculate the parity percentages and the faculty salary increase trends over the past 21 years. The faculty salary methodology includes two…