Salaries are one of the most powerful policy levers states and school districts can use to attract qualified, effective, and diverse teachers. What role do states play in supporting strategic use of salaries? This report examines the state teacher compensation policies that influence districts' potential strategic use of teacher pay. It analyzes…

The current brief provides an overview of the 2021-2022 school year student-to-school psychologist ratio for every United States territory, using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) counts of school psychologists. In addition to this, data are presented on the percentage change in student-to-school psychologist ratio from the…

A recent survey of 41 different state boards of education revealed that officials from 28 states indicate that they are experiencing teacher shortages. The shortages in some states are significant. While the teacher shortage in many states is tied to different factors, one frequently cited reason for leaving the teaching profession is low pay.…

We use data from 2015-2016 to document faculty representation and wage gaps by race-ethnicity and gender in six fields at selective public universities. Consistent with widely available information, Black, Hispanic, and female professors are underrepresented and White and Asian professors are overrepresented in our data. Disadvantaged minority and…

Nobody goes into teaching to get rich, but that's no excuse not to pay teachers as professionals. Compensation is one of the most important factors in determining who enters the teaching profession and how long they stay--yet 90 percent of all U.S. school districts pay teachers without any regard for their actual performance with students,…

Making robust and reliable information about schools accessible is one of the most powerful ways to foster engagement and promote informed decisions that will shape our communities. Though education data is frequently collected and aggregated at the state level, data is rarely synthesized across cities. This report provides comparable information…

Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement…

A growing number of American school systems are experimenting with innovative and varied methods of tying educators' salaries more closely to their work through differential pay. Differential pay means paying teachers differently based on their performance, their responsibilities, and/or their teaching assignments. For instance, it can mean…

Teachers unions are among the most powerful, yet least studied, actors in public education today. Although public attention focuses on the influence of national unions, the policies that most affect teachers and schooling are bargained by local unions and school boards. Interviews with 30 recently elected local union presidents reveal that these…

This policy primer is designed to provide base-line information about new forms of teacher pay that are emerging around the country, to support the local conversations and negotiations that will lead to the development of innovative compensation systems. It identifies reasons why teacher compensation is high on local, state, and federal policy…

In the era of No Child Left Behind, principals are increasingly held accountable for student performance. But are teacher labor agreements giving them enough flexibility to manage effectively? This study answers this question and others. It examines how much flexibility school leaders enjoy on key dimensions of management in America's fifty…

School district budgets typically hide as much as they reveal. Superintendents are finding this as they discover huge deficits that nobody saw coming. District budgets are opaque by design, and they often mask important facts about resource allocation within a district, as well as about total spending. This paper reports the results of an original…

Although states have maintained a focus on recruiting and retaining teachers, many schools and districts still face daunting challenges in ensuring a qualified and competent teaching corps. It is particularly difficult for schools considered hard to staff-those with high concentrations of low-performing, low-income students; high teacher turnover;…

The impact of correctional education (CE) on inmates' postrelease behavior was examined in a longitudinal study of recidivism in Maryland (which has a medium-sized prison population), Minnesota (which has a small prison population), and Ohio (which has a large prison population). The study sample consisted of 3,170 individuals in the release…

This bulletin identifies and discusses several outstanding achievements in home-economics education during the biennium. Individual sections explore: (1) Findings of statistical study of home economics in the public high schools; (2) Curriculum making; (3) Child development and parental education, including higher education, secondary education,…