Teacher's Pet
Income Inequality, the Median Voter, and the Support for Public Education
Sean Corcoran & William Evans
NBER Working Paper, June 2010
Abstract:
Using a panel of U.S. school districts spanning 1970 - 2000, we examine the relationship between income inequality and fiscal support for public education. In contrast with recent theoretical and empirical work suggesting a negative relationship between inequality and public spending, we find results consistent with a median voter model, in which inequality that reduces the median voter's tax share induces higher local spending on public education. We estimate that 12 to 22 percent of the increase in local school spending over this period is attributable to rising inequality.
----------------------
Principal Preferences and the Uneven Distribution of Principals Across Schools
Susanna Loeb, Demetra Kalogrides & Eileen Lai Horng
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 205-229
Abstract:
The authors use longitudinal data from one large school district to investigate the distribution of principals across schools. They find that schools serving many low-income, non-White, and low-achieving students have principals who have less experience and less education and who attended less selective colleges. This distribution of principals is partially driven by the initial match of first-time principals to schools, and it is exacerbated by systematic attrition and transfer away from these schools. The authors supplement these data with surveys of principals and find that their stated preferences for school characteristics mirror observed distribution and transfer patterns: Principals prefer to work in easier-to-serve schools with favorable working conditions, which tend to be schools with fewer poor, minority, and low-achieving students.
----------------------
A 50-State Strategy to Achieve School Finance Adequacy
Allan Odden, Lawrence Picus & Michael Goetz
Educational Policy, July 2010, Pages 628-654
Abstract:
This article estimates the costs of school finance adequacy in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. by applying the recommendations from an evidence-based model to the student characteristics of each individual state. Using two different prices, (a) the national average teacher salaries adjusted by a comparable wage index and (b) individual state teacher salaries, the authors estimate per pupil costs of adequacy. Results suggest that in 30 states additional resources are needed to reach the funding level for the evidence-based model. The findings do not make adjustments for diseconomies resulting from large numbers of small schools or districts or other state preferences for educational services that could lead to individual state variations from the authors' findings.
----------------------
Status versus growth: The distributional effects of school accountability policies
Helen Ladd & Douglas Lauen
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Summer 2010, Pages 426-450
Abstract:
Although the federal No Child Left Behind program judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a 10-year student-level panel data set from North Carolina, we examine how school-specific pressure associated with status and growth approaches to school accountability affect student achievement at different points in the prior-year achievement distribution. Achievement gains for students below the proficiency cut point emerge in schools failing either type of accountability standard, with the effects clearer for math than for reading. In contrast to prior research highlighting the possibility of educational triage, we find little or no evidence that failing schools in North Carolina ignore the students far below proficiency under either approach. Importantly, we find that the status, but not the growth, approach reduces the reading achievement of higher performing students. Our analysis suggests that the distributional effects of accountability pressure depend not only on the type of pressure for which schools are held accountable (status or growth), but also the tested subject.
----------------------
Supplemental Education Services Under No Child Left Behind: Who Signs Up, and What Do They Gain?
Carolyn Heinrich, Robert Meyer & Greg Whitten
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 273-298
Abstract:
Schools that have not made adequate yearly progress in increasing student academic achievement are required, under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), to offer children in low-income families the opportunity to receive supplemental educational services (SES). In research conducted in Milwaukee Public Schools, the authors explore whether parents and students are aware of their eligibility and options for extra tutoring under NCLB, and who among eligible students registers for SES. Using the best information available to school districts, the authors estimate the effects of SES in increasing students' reading and math achievement. Their nonexperimental estimates suggest no average effects of SES attendance on student achievement gains. They use qualitative research to explore possible explanations for the lack of observed effects.
----------------------
Competition and Teacher Pay
Lori Taylor
Economic Inquiry, July 2010, Pages 603-620
Abstract:
Competition-based school reform could have a significant impact on teacher earnings. If school districts behave as typical oligopsonists, then increased competition could lead to higher salaries. However, if teachers receive a share of the economic rents generated by the monopoly power of school districts, then increased competition could lower teacher salaries. This study uses panel data from 670 Texas school districts and more than 335,000 teachers to examine the relationship between school competition and teacher pay. The analysis suggests that an increase in competition results in higher wages for most teachers but lower wages for teachers in relatively concentrated markets.
----------------------
School accountability and teacher mobility
Li Feng, David Figlio & Tim Sass
NBER Working Paper, June 2010
Abstract:
This paper presents the first causal evidence on the effects of school accountability systems on teacher labor markets. We exploit a 2002 change in Florida's school accountability system that exogenously shocked some schools to higher accountability grades and others to lower accountability grades, and measure whether teachers in shocked schools are more or less likely to move. Using microdata from the universe of Florida public school teachers, we find strong evidence that accountability shocks influence the teacher labor market; specifically, teachers are more likely to leave schools that have been downward shocked -- especially to the bottom grade -- and they are less likely to leave schools that have been upward shocked. We also find that accountability shocks influence the distribution of the measured quality of teachers (in terms of value added measures) who stay and leave their school, though the average differences are not large.
----------------------
Dissent From Within: How Educational Insiders Use Protest to Create Policy Change
Frank Grossman
Educational Policy, July 2010, Pages 655-686
Abstract:
This article utilizes social movement theory to analyze policy change created by site-based educators. The author uses a qualitative case study to examine how an organization comprised of teachers and administrators in New York State used protest to protect a waiver, which exempted students in their schools from having to pass statewide graduation exams. The author finds that the educators' ability to mobilize resources and to strategically frame their struggle in a manner that resonated with policymakers allowed the educator activists to capitalize on emerging controversies surrounding the state's assessment system and create policy change. This article provides a framework to understand how marginalized actors within systems of schooling organize to create change. Such a framework is becoming increasingly relevant as educators attempt to create space for local practice in the current top-down policy environment.
----------------------
Targeted Funding for Educationally Disadvantaged Students: A Regression Discontinuity Estimate of the Impact on High School Student Achievement
Gary Henry, Kevin Fortner & Charles Thompson
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 183-204
Abstract:
Evaluating the impacts of public school funding on student achievement has been an important objective for informing education policymaking but fraught with data and methodological limitations. Findings from prior research have been mixed at best, leaving policymakers with little advice about the benefits of allocating public resources to schools or how it might best be done. In this study, the authors take advantage of a pilot supplemental funding program in North Carolina that used a quantitative index of educational advantage to select the most educationally disadvantaged districts in the state to receive funding. The targeted districts received supplemental funds of $250 per pupil or $840 per academically disadvantaged pupil for the 2 years of the pilot. Using a regression discontinuity design and multilevel models with extensive controls, the authors estimate that the marginal average treatment effect of the supplemental funding was 0.133 standard deviation units and that the effect on educationally disadvantaged students was 0.098 standard deviation units. The treatment effect represents approximately one third of the difference between the average score in top performing and low performing high schools.
----------------------
Do financial incentives help low-performing schools attract and keep academically talented teachers? Evidence from California
Jennifer Steele, Richard Murnane & John Willett
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Summer 2010, Pages 451-478
Abstract:
This study capitalizes on a natural experiment that occurred in California between 2000 and 2002. In those years, the state offered a competitively allocated $20,000 incentive called the Governor's Teaching Fellowship (GTF) aimed at attracting academically talented, novice teachers to low-performing schools and retaining them in those schools for at least four years. Taking advantage of data on the career histories of 27,106 individuals who pursued California teaching licenses between 1998 and 2003, we use an instrumental variable strategy to estimate the unbiased impact of the GTF on the decisions of recipients to begin working in low-performing schools within 2 years after licensure program enrollment. We estimate that GTF recipients would have been less likely to teach in low-performing schools than observably similar counterparts had the GTF not existed, but that acquiring a GTF increased their probability of doing so by 28 percentage points. Examining retention patterns, we find that 75 percent of both GTF recipients and nonrecipients who began working in low-performing schools remained in such schools for at least four years.
----------------------
Students Left Behind: Measuring 10th to 12th Grade Student Persistence Rates in Texas High Schools
Thurston Domina, Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar & Marta Tienda
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 324-346
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to publish high school graduation rates for public schools; the U.S. Department of Education is currently considering a mandate to standardize high school graduation rate reporting. However, no consensus exists among researchers or policymakers about how to measure high school graduation rates. We use longitudinal data tracking a cohort of students at 82 Texas public high schools to assess the precision of three widely used high school graduation rate measures: Texas's official graduation rates and two competing estimates based on publicly available enrollment data from the Common Core of Data. Our analyses show that these widely used approaches yield highly imprecise estimates of high school graduation and persistence rates. We propose several guidelines for using existing graduation and persistence rate data and argue that a national effort to track students as they progress through high school is essential to reconcile conflicting estimates.
----------------------
The Determinants of School District Salary Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of, Where and Why
Stephanie Martin
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Most public school districts in the United States use a salary schedule to determine compensation for teachers within the district. However, some school districts have implemented incentive pay schemes that allow flexibility at the school or even individual teacher level. These compensation schemes in some ways may more closely approximate a competitive labor market. This study examines the factors that influence a district's decision to offer incentive pay using districts from the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey. The results suggest that school districts that face barriers to recruitment or retention and districts that face competition from non-sectarian private schools are more likely to offer incentive pay.
----------------------
Does State Merit-Based Aid Stem Brain Drain?
Liang Zhang & Erik Ness
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 143-165
Abstract:
In this study, the authors use college enrollment and migration data to test the brain drain hypothesis. Their results suggest that state merit scholarship programs do indeed stanch the migration of "best and brightest" students to other states. In the aggregate and on average, the implementation of state merit aid programs both increases the total 1st-year student enrollment in merit aid states and boosts resident college enrollment in these states significantly. The gross enrollment increase is a function of increased total student enrollment from these states and, perhaps more important, decreased emigration from these states. In addition to these overall effects, variations across states and across types of institutions exist due to scholarship eligibility criteria and award amount across states.