This qualitative comparative case study explores the teacher retention system practices of rural and small city school districts in New York State that have low entry-level teacher turnover rates. This research problem addresses the need to examine the system practices employed by districts with high rates of teacher retention in supporting and…

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…

Teacher compensation is one of the most divisive issues in public educational policy as all stakeholder groups ponder the cost effectiveness of increasing teacher pay. What this issue presupposes is that our American educational system tends to underpay teachers and thusly the results of our schools reflect this lagged commitment to appropriate…

This paper uses the most recent federal data to compare broad measures of public school spending in New York and other states--and to point to likely explanations for the differences. As of 2014-15, New York led all states with PreK-12 spending of $21,206 per pupil--86 percent above the US average, according to Census Bureau data. The school…

In school districts across the United States, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and retain STEM teachers. This is due, in part, to the limited number of candidates in teacher preparation school compared to other disciplines, as well as greater opportunities for STEM teachers in other employment sectors when compared to teachers in…

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.…

This is a study of district internal salary distribution practices and its effect on retention. The study is a replication study as recommended by Jacobson (1986) and Lankford and Wyckoff (1997) whereby their research shows the prevalence of "back loading" and ineffectiveness relative to retention. In the case of this study, the…

New York's newly enacted state budget for fiscal 2017 included an exceptionally large school aid increase of $1.5 billion--6.5 percent over the previous year, more than triple the projected inflation rate. This brings the state-funded share of K-12 public school expenses to an all-time record of nearly $25 billion, despite steadily declining…

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…

There is ample opportunity for state boards to improve outcomes for children by strengthening the early care and education workforce and thereby improving the quality of early care and education. Ensuring that ECE professionals have the knowledge, supports, and resources they need to support children's learning is one avenue to improving the…

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…

New York's annual budget battles over state aid to public schools have taken on a new urgency in the wake of the Great Recession and the 2011 enactment of a law empowering local voters to cap their property taxes. Education spending advocates say the tax cap and a statutory limit on school aid increases are forcing school districts to slash…

This article identifies a set of location incentives created by New York's charter school financing and accountability provisions. We then use regression models to examine the location of charter schools across and within districts. We find that charter schools (1) are significantly more likely to locate in districts with high operating expenses…

New York's annual budget battles over state aid to public schools have taken on a new urgency in the wake of the Great Recession and the 2011 enactment of a law empowering local voters to cap their property taxes. Education spending advocates say the tax cap and a statutory limit on school aid increases are forcing school districts to slash…

Teach For America (TFA) began in 1990 as an organization purportedly interested in working towards ameliorating a national teacher shortage by sending its corps members into urban and rural schools. In the decades that followed, especially during and immediately following a nationwide onslaught of teacher layoffs instigated by the 2008 Great…