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.…

On February 24, 2017, all of the authors of the state-of-the-state manuscripts published in the "Journal of Education Finance" met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to participate in a roundtable discussion focused on recent legislative actions in 38 states. A majority of those papers were revised to reflect a final report on legislative actions…

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,…

Two competing pressures--downsized budgets and rising policy interest--have left the future of performance-based teacher compensation uncertain. A dicey fiscal climate and research that has shown limited impact have led some states and districts to scale back, abandon, or change their fledgling merit-pay programs, causing observers to wonder what…

Policymakers know that improving teaching in our schools requires a systemic look at many policies related to educator effectiveness. For example, teacher preparation programs need to be dramatically improved and strengthened, but without accompanying reform in compensation, even highly effective and innovative schools of education are unlikely to…

Policymakers have long pursued more cost effective, scalable alternatives for delivering elementary and secondary education. The elusive goal is identifying how to reform educational systems so that children will consistently achieve more academically--at a lesser cost. A frequently heard reform claim of this sort is that charter schools deliver…

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…

Value-added measures of teacher effectiveness are the centerpiece of a national movement to evaluate, promote, compensate, and dismiss teachers based in part on their students' test results. Federal, state, and local policy-makers have adopted these methods en masse in recent years in an attempt to objectively quantify teaching effectiveness and…

Although there is a growing recognition that the traditional teacher salary schedule does not reward the most effective teachers, most U.S. school districts don't offer teacher incentives for improving student performance and the vast majority of teachers actually oppose such a plan. This Information Capsule reviewed recent studies conducted on…

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…

Building a stronger teacher workforce requires the thoughtful orchestration of multiple processes working together in a human capital system. This white paper presents a framework that can be used to take stock of current efforts to enhance the teacher workforce in school districts or educational organizations, as well as their underlying theories…

It is widely believed that starting public school teacher salaries are too low, and student loan burdens are too high. If true, everyone could be facing a situation in which recent college graduates cannot afford to go into teaching because they will be unable to repay their college debts. Public policies are already being formulated on the basis…