This paper examines the relation between teacher pay and teacher quality through the career dynamics of teachers and non-teachers. I find that public school teachers earn considerably less than their comparable college graduates in the non-teaching sector. By tracking wage differentials before and after career changes, I find evidence of positive selection, in which high-paid teachers are more likely to move to non-teaching occupations, and of negative selection, in which low-paid non-teachers tend to move to the teaching sector. These selection patterns, which ultimately contribute to a decrease in teacher quality, are more significant in union-unfriendly states.
AllegrettoSylvia A.MishelLawrence. 2016. “The Teacher Pay Gap Is Wider Than Ever: Teachers’ Pay Continues to Fall Further behind Pay of Comparable Workers.” Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
2.
AllegrettoSylvia A.MishelLawrence. 2018. “The Teacher Pay Penalty has Hit a New High: Trends in the Teacher Wage and Compensation Gaps through 2017.” Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
3.
BacolodMarigee P.2003. “Do Alternative Opportunities Matter?The Role of Female Labor Markets in the Decline of Teacher Supply and Teacher Quality, 1940-1990.” Working paper. Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine.
4.
BallouDalePodgurskyMichael. 2001. “Let the Market Decide.” Education Next1 (1): 1-7.
5.
BettsJulian R.1995. “Does School Quality Matter? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.” Review of Economics and Statistics77:231-47.
6.
BiasiBarbara. 2019. “The Labor Market for Teachers under Different Pay Schemes.” NBER Working Paper No. 24813.” https://www.nber.org/papers/w24813.
BoeErlingCookLynne. 2006. “The Chronic and Increasing Shortage of Fully Certified Teachers in Special and General Education.” Exceptional Children72 (4): 443-60.
9.
BorjasGeorge J.1987. “Self-selection and the Earnings of Immigrants.” American Economic Review77 (4): 531-53.
10.
BoydDonald J.LankfordHamiltonLoebSusannaRockoffJonah E.WyckoffJames H.2007. “The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High-poverty Schools.” CALDER Working Paper 10. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
11.
BrittonJackPropperCarol. 2016. “Teacher Pay and School Productivity: Exploiting Wage Regulation.” Journal of Public Economics133:75-89.
12.
CarrollThomas G.FosterElizabeth. 2010. “Who Will Teach? Experience Matters.” Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
13.
ChingosMatthew M.WestMartin R.2012. “Do More Effective Teachers Earn More Outside the Classroom?” Education Finance and Policy7 (1): 8-43.
14.
ClotfelterCharles T.LaddHelen F.VigdorJacob L.2010. “Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School a Cross-subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects.” Journal of Human Resources45 (3): 655-81.
15.
CorcoranSean P.EvansWilliam N.SchwabRobert M.2004. “Changing Labor-market Opportunities for Women and the Quality of Teachers. 1957-2000.” The American Economic Review94 (2): 230-35.
16.
Darling-HammondLindaFurgerRobertaShieldsPatrick M.SutcherLeib. 2016. “Addressing California’s Emerging Teacher Shortage: An Analysis of Sources and Solutions.” Palo Alto: Learning Policy Institute.
17.
DoltonPeterMarcenaro-GutiérrezOscar D.2011. “If You Pay Peanuts Do You Get Monkeys? A Cross-Country Analysis of Teacher Pay and Pupil Performance.” Economic Policy26 (65): 5-55.
FiglioDavid N.LucasMaurice E.2004. “Do High Grading Standards Affect Student Performance?” Journal of Public Economics88 (9-10): 1815-34.
20.
FitzpatrickMaria D.2015. “How Much Are Public School Teachers Willing to Pay for Their Retirement Benefits?” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy7 (4): 165-88.
21.
FlyerFrederickRosenShirwin. 1997. “The New Economics of Teachers and Education.” Journal of Labor Economics15 (1): S104-38.
22.
GoldhaberDanKriegJohnTheobaldRoddyBrownNate. 2015. “Refueling the STEM and special education teacher pipelines.” Phi Delta Kappan97:56-62.
23.
GoldhaberDanWalchJoe. 2014. Gains in Teacher Quality. Education Next, 14(1):38-45.
24.
GoldinClaudia. 2006. “The Quiet Revolution that Informed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family.” The American Economic Review96 (2): 1-21.
25.
GrissomJason A.StrunkKatharine O.2012. “How Should School Districts Shape Teacher Salary Schedules? Linking School Performance to Pay Structure in Traditional Compensation Schemes.” Educational Policy26 (5): 663-95.
26.
HanEunice S.2019. “The Impact of Teachers Unions on Teachers’ Well-being under Different Legal Institutions: Evidence from District-teacher Matched Data.” AERA Open5 (3).
27.
HanEunice S.MaloneyThomas. 2019. “Teacher Unionization and Student Academic Performance: Looking beyond Collective Bargaining.” [published online ahead of print October 24, 2019]. Labor Studies Journal, October. doi:10.1177/0160449X19883373.
28.
HanushekEric. 1986. “The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools.” Journal of Economic Literature24 (3): 1141-77.
HendricksMatthew D.2014. “Does It Pay to Pay Teachers More? Evidence from Texas.” Journal of Public Economics109:50-63.
34.
HoxbyCaroline M.LeighAndrew. 2004. “Pulled Away or Pushed Out? Explaining the Decline of Teacher Aptitude in the U.S.” The American Economic Review94 (2): 236-40.
IngersollR.MerrillL.StuckeyDaniel. 2014. Seven trends: the transformation of the teaching force, updated April 2014. CPRE Report (#RR-80). Philadelphia: Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania.
37.
JohnstonAndrew.2018. “Teacher Utility, Separating Equilibria, and Optimal Compensation: Evidence from a Discrete-choice Experiment.” Fall 2018 NBER Economics of Education Program.
38.
KaneThomas J.RockoffJonah E.StaigerDouglas O.2008. “What Does Certification Tell Us about Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City.” Economics of Education Review27 (6): 615-31.
39.
LaddHelen F.2008. “Value-added Modeling of Teacher Credentials: Policy Implications.” Paper presented at the second annual CALDER research conference, “The Ins and Outs of Value-added Measures in Education: What Research Says,” Washington, DC, November21. http://www.caldercenter.org/upload/Sunny_Ladd_presentation.pdf.
LeighAndrew. 2012. “Teacher Pay and Teacher Aptitude.” Economics of Education Review31 (3): 41-53.
42.
LoebSusannaPageMarianne. 2000. “Examining the Link between Teacher Wages and Student Outcomes: The Importance of Alternative Labor Market Opportunities and Nonpecuniary Variation.” Review of Economics and Statistics82 (3): 393-408.
43.
MacartneyHughMcMillanRobertPetronijevicUros. 2018. “Teacher Performance and Accountability Incentives.” NBER Working Paper No. 24747. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24747.
44.
MoeTerry M.2011. Special interest. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
45.
MurnaneRichard J.SingerJudith D.WillettJohn B.KempleJames J.OlsenRandall J.1991. Who Will Teach? Policies That Matter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
46.
NaglerMarkusPiopiunikMarcWestMartin. 2017. “Weak Markets, Strong Teachers: Recession at Career Start and Teacher Effectiveness.” NBER Working Paper No. 21393. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21393.
47.
PendletonAndrewRobinsonAndrew. 2017. “The Productivity Effects of Multiple Pay Incentives.” Economic and Industrial Democracy38 (4): 588-608.
TeminPeter. 2002. “Teacher Quality and the Future of America.” Eastern Economic Journal28 (3): 285-300.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
