The ongoing global financial crisis is forcing many employers, from General Motors to local general stores, to take a hard look at the costs of the compensation packages they offer employees. For public school systems, this will entail a consideration of fringe benefit costs, which in recent years have become an increasingly important component of…

Review of public school compensation policies and comparison of teacher salaries with those of other white-collar workers found that public schools spend the same percentage of wage-rewarding seniority as other employers. A steeper wage-tenure profile reduces turnover, but turnover costs are likely not high enough to make this an optimal use of…

According to data from the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey (56,000 public and 1,500 private school teachers), those in districts with merit pay are not demoralized or hostile toward it. Teachers of disadvantaged and low achieving students support it. Private school teachers favor it more than public school teachers do. (SK)

In the flurry of activity surrounding the implementation of No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) student proficiency mandates, the federal requirement to have a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom by 2005 seemed like an impossible goal. However, 2005 has come and gone and the highly qualified teacher crisis never happened. In this…

This report presents data on the Missouri teacher labor market, using existing administrative records about the state's public schools, teachers staffing them, and students attending them from 1994-95. Data are presented on: enrollment growth (size and distribution of public school enrollment changes); Missouri's teaching workforce (size and…