The United States is rare among nations in its highly decentralized process for negotiating collective bargaining agreements with local teachers' unions. To determine whether partisanship can predict these highly localized decisions, I construct an original database of Pennsylvania collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) merged with publicly…

This paper examines how school districts change teacher salaries in response to large changes in revenue. Using district-level salary schedule data for nearly all California school districts, we analyze two time periods: one with a decrease in funding (2007-08 to 2011-12 marked by the Great Recession) and one with a significant increase in funding…

In this brief, we set out to understand how unionization may or may not shape practices central to charter schools' ability to serve students. The study, an exploratory one, includes 29 interviews across eight schools that unionized four to six years ago. Our results point to areas of concern, optimism, and future research. We found: (1)…

Long-standing shortages of well-prepared special educators, especially within rural areas, have jeopardized positive outcomes for students with disabilities. In this multiple case study of administrators and special educators, the authors examined how individuals make sense of the special education teacher shortages in relation to the challenges…

We study the equity-efficiency implication of giving school districts control over teacher pay using an equilibrium model of the market for public-school teachers. Teachers differ in their comparative advantages in teaching low- or high-achieving students. School districts, which serve different student bodies, use both wage and hiring strategies…

Texas reduced new teacher preparation requirements in 2001 to allow more alternate paths to licensure. Within 5 years, this policy change resulted in more than half of the state's new teachers being alternatively licensed. Using a series of first difference models, this study examines the relationship between the increased supply of new teachers…

The current study sought to explore potential candidates' (PCs') interest in becoming primary school principals in the towns bordering Addis Ababa in Ethiopia's Oromia Regional State. The study adopted an interpretive phenomenological design. Participants in the study were ten purposively selected PCs and educational officials. The data were…

Whether improved local economic conditions lead to better student outcomes is theoretically ambiguous and will depend on how schools use additional revenues and how students and teachers respond to rising private sector wages. The Texas boom in shale oil and gas drilling, with its large and localized effects on wages and the tax base, provides a…

This paper examines the relationship between teacher pay and students' academic achievement, using nationally representative, district-level linked data between districts' performance on standardized tests and average teacher base salary. By employing state fixed effects and multilevel mixed effects models, we find that both mathematics and…

A fundamental question for education policy is whether outcomes-based accountability including comprehensive educator evaluations and a closer relationship between effectiveness and compensation improves the quality of instruction and raises achievement. We use synthetic control methods to study the comprehensive teacher and principal evaluation…

With the expansion of performance-based incentives, there is growing interest in understanding how they affect leadership quality and composition. This paper studies a reform in a large urban public school district that ties principal compensation to their performance. Using a regression discontinuity design, I investigate the effect of…

Theory suggests that strategic compensation can not only serve as a powerful motivational incentive to increase worker performance, but also improve the composition of the workforce through the attraction and retention of high performers and discouragement of lesser performers from entering or staying in the profession. This study tests the…

An American School District Panel (ASDP) survey administered in fall 2021 revealed district leaders' widespread concerns about teacher, substitute, and bus driver shortages; political polarization interfering with schooling; students' mental health, behavior, and attendance; and declining student enrollment. In this report, we revisit these…

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…

The quality of the teaching force in our public schools has received great attention as one of the approaches to improve student performance, as there exists ample evidence that teacher quality matters for student achievement (see McCaffrey et al., 2004 for a review on this literature). Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain (2005) find large differences…