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…

Early childhood education and care is critical to Wisconsin's families and businesses, offering a safe place for children to grow and learn during formative years while parents and other guardians participate in the workforce. Despite its importance, child care can be prohibitively expensive for some Wisconsin families, and the industry operates…

As part of our research on the community college baccalaureate (CCB), we studied the prospects of adopting and scaling CCB degrees in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Higher education leaders in these six Great Lakes states recognized the potential for CCB degrees to increase academic, geographic and financial access to…

Post-recession Federal policy initiatives, such as secondary/postsecondary career pathways and gainful employment higher education accountability standards, prioritize the alignment of education practices with market-driven outcomes. Using longitudinal student record data merged from college and state K-12 data systems with the Unemployment…

Objective: Research on labor market outcomes for individuals who enroll in technical colleges is limited, with even less attention to the effects of short-term certificates than associate degrees. Also, despite the importance of manufacturing programs, there is a lack of research on employment outcomes for individuals who enroll in these programs…

Individual variation in labor supply can arise from more than just a choice among discrete occupation groups, especially given the joint process of wage determination and time allocation. Other factors can include differential preferences for earnings, the time length of work and other related occupational attributes. Using data from the Wisconsin…

In collaboration with the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), the Public Policy Forum surveyed 1,425 child care center directors, center employees, and family child care providers statewide. The survey was designed to provide a picture of the status of Wisconsin's child care workforce in terms of educational attainment, experience,…

When he was still President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now mayor-elect of Chicago, famously quipped: "Never allow a crisis to go to waste." Republican governors in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and other states have certainly taken that advice to heart. By emphasizing, and in some cases manipulating, the red ink flowing through…

Employer subsidies such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW) are designed to encourage employment by partially reimbursing employers for wages paid to certain welfare recipients and other disadvantaged workers. In this paper, I examine the effects of these subsidies on employment, wages, and job tenure…

Discussions of early childhood care and education usually focus on its social and educational value, and how it helps children and families. More recently, the focus in many states, including Wisconsin, has been on potential investments in child care quality improvements as strategies for improving long-term educational outcomes for disadvantaged…

This study presents the public costs of high school dropouts in Wisconsin. It examines how dropouts in the state dramatically impact state finances through reduced tax revenues, increased Medicaid costs, and high incarceration rates. It also examines just how much high school dropouts cost Wisconsin's taxpayers each year, and how much could be…

This document, current through 1986, contains four parts. Part I presents a conceptual framework used to view disability among the working age population; the rudiments and objectives of workers' compensation programs; and an explanation of the criteria of adequacy, equity, and efficiency as used in the report. Part II presents a study of 10…

This report provides information on the wages of specific traditional and nontraditional occupations in Rock County, Wisconsin, especially regarding women. The first section identifies "traditionally male" and "traditionally female" occupations. Two tables list occupations and number/percent of women in the occupations. Section…

A survey of 414 child care providers in southeastern Wisconsin reveals that cost as well as low wages and lack of benefits for workers can constrain providers from pursuing improvements to child-care quality. Of survey respondents, approximately half of whom are home-based and half center-based, 13% have at least three of five structural factors…

This fact sheet is provided by the 4-C Worker Outreach Project in an effort to increase awareness of day care working conditions in Dane County, Wisconsin. Areas covered in the fact sheet are (1) staff wages and benefits; (2) educational background of day care staff; and (3) staff retention and turnover. Data were obtained from 58 full-day and 37…