Ensuring a stable pool of teachers is critical to building a pipeline of future workers, especially in career and technical education (CTE), where programming can lead to immediate post-school employment or postsecondary enrollment. We use longitudinal state data with unemployment insurance records to document workforce dynamics among CTE…

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…

When pension benefits are not directly tied to contributions, some individuals may earn disproportionate returns on their retirement contributions. For instance, individuals who receive relatively larger late-career raises will receive disproportionately greater returns. For teachers, whose salaries are determined by salary schedules set by…

Longitudinal administrative data generated by public education systems in the United States have become increasingly available and have tremendous potential to inform policy research. While it is tempting to take the accuracy of administrative data for granted, there are reasons why researchers should approach these data with a degree of caution.…

Many argue that public school systems should stop linking teachers' salaries so closely to their years of experience. However, the effect of deferred retirement compensation on the premium paid to experienced teachers has, to date, been underappreciated. To shed more light on this issue, we calculate the total compensation earned by teachers in…

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…

Women take qualifying exams and enter medical school at substantially lower levels than predicted by their interest in medical degrees at the end of high school. We examined how science course experiences contribute to gendered attrition in premed using a multicohort data set of 8,253 undergraduates taking the traditional premed sequence of…

This article examines the economic effect of education in terms of its impact on the earnings of workers in an information technology (IT)-diffusing economy, based on data from Hong Kong's 2006 by-census and survey on the usage and penetration of IT in industries. Education enhances the productivity of workers and increases their lifetime incomes.…

Akiba, LeTendre, and Scribner (2007) identified two problems with mathematics education in the United States: (a) a shortage of qualified mathematics teachers and (b) unequal access to those teachers by students of high and low socioeconomic status. Akiba et al. called for further research on how South Korea and other countries have achieved…

Two decades of research into educational production function have revealed that variations in school expenditures are not systematically related to educational background, teaching experience, or class size; nor are better teachers paid more than lesser ones. School decision-making must move away from input directed policies to ones providing…

Presents a structural equation model for understanding the relationship between salary incentives for teachers and class size and student achievement. Using data on student achievement in 102 Colorado school districts, finds that the model is moderately successful for explaining reading achievement, but factors not included in the model probably…

Examines four proposed solutions being developed on different campuses to revamp tenure and education, arguing that to adequately handle organizational problems in higher education, it is necessary to emphasize the cultural framework in which academe is situated. Discusses tenure as structure, organizational critiques of tenure, restructuring…

Inseparable histories of teaching, teachers, and teacher education point to social and institutional pressures on the development of teacher preparation over the past two centuries. Persistence of basic patterns of influence and policy suggests that reform of teacher education requires both programmatic changes and improvements in the conditions…

Traces the patterns of wage premiums for college graduates since 1963. Also examines the wage differentials between high school dropouts and graduates, and between college dropouts and graduates. The dramatic rise in the wage premium is due to the huge increase in the demand for college-trained workers. (Author/BJV)

Introduces the other articles in this special issue, which addresses the economics of education, by providing a concise summary of each. (BJV)