Teacher Wages Research Articles

Education costs and institutional structure

An empirical comparison is made of the impact on disaggregated education costs of three types of education spending control regimes — state-level control of education spending; local school board control of spending with non-overlapping jurisdictions; and local school board control with overlapping jurisdictions. A model is specified which describes the determination of teacher wages, the teacher–student ratio, administrative costs, and other operating costs under each regime. The model is estimated using Canadian provincial-level data and the entire estimated structure of behaviour is allowed to vary across the three regimes. The estimates imply that education costs are regime dependent and that a single proxy variable is unlikely to reflect the differences between regimes. Simulations indicate that centralized state or provincial control of spending leads to the lowest teacher costs. The local control regime with non-overlapping jurisdictions is the most successful at controlling administrative and other operating costs.

What education production functions really show: a positive theory of education expenditures

An optimizing model of expenditure allocations predicts that input use should be chosen so that the marginal product per dollar of each input is equalized. In decided contrast, the existing literature shows that the marginal product per dollar of inputs not directly valued by teachers are commonly 10 to 100 times higher than that of inputs valued by teachers. This implies that inputs which provide direct benefits to educators (like teacher wages) are over-used relative to inputs that contribute directly (but only) to educational output (like books or instructional materials). One class of positive models of expenditures consistent with this empirical finding invokes a very high ratio of teacher to parent (or student) influence in the determination of expenditures. This implies that educational reforms that shift the relative strengths of parents versus teachers in the allocation of expenditures can sometimes lead to enormous gains in the cost effectiveness of schools. [JEL I21]

Political economic determinants of school spending in federal states: Theory and time-series evidence

To develop the understanding of public sector growth, this paper addresses the determinants of one important component of public spending, public education. Disaggregation of school expenditure allows for an analysis of how different decisions at the national and the local government level contribute to increased spending. A bargaining model between the central government and a teacher union is combined with a demand model of educational services at the local government level. Political characteristics are assumed to influence the central government bargaining strength over teacher wages and working hours. The model is implemented using a database for economic, political and school factors in Norway during 1880–1990. Political strength, measured as stable government and low party fragmentation of parliament, is shown to be important to hold down teacher employment. Socialist orientation of the government tends to drive up both teacher wages and employment. The inelastic response of local governments to centrally determined cost factors imply that they are not able to hold back spending growth following higher costs.

Sources of Cost Expansion: Primary Education in Norway 1946–1990

Primary school spending growth is a concern in the public debate in Norway. During the 1980s, real spending per student increased by 35%, but no improvement in student performance has been documented. School spending in decided in a complicated process involving central and local governments and bargaining with teacher unions. In this econometric study the primary school spending growth is shown to be the result of cost factors determined at the national level together with lack of adjustment to rising costs in local governments. Policies to control school spending must address the bargaining strangth of the central goverment to hold back on teacher wages and teacher employment and the responsiveness of local governments to higher costs.

‘Physician, reveal thyself?”

In retrospect, I should have seen it coming if you get what I mean! But retrospect is easy; insight is often the first casualty of distress. I had always had a cyclothymic personality; walking on air one minute, ten feet under the next. Usually, the black moods would fly in like may-bugs, drone around my head then out again; but this one was here to stay. It was there in nightmare when I slept; it was there in apprehen sion when I awoke. It prevented all enjoyment. I could not ignore it. No matter how I swatted at it, the creature would not go away. At first I tried to cage it in rationality. I had come late to medicine, on the back of an Arts degree, journalism, teaching and a thousand fillin jobs. I drifted in by accident almost, for want of anything better. I was 'indebted' to a whole string of people who had allowed it to happen parents who did not burden me with their bewilderment (after all, was I not supposed to be Prime Minister by now?}, a wife who would have to support us on a probationary teacher's wages, the clinical tutor

Collective bargaining and the determinants of teachers’ salaries

Using a national sample of public high schools, we find that bargaining spillovers play an important role in teachers’ labor markets. The spillover variable consistently indicates a larger bargaining effect than does the collective bargaining coverage dummy. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state density of teachers’ unions increases the highest teacher salaries by 2.6 percent and the lowest by 0.2 percent. Consistent with prior research, teacher union density was most strongly associated with highest salaries and had a nonsignificant positive association with lowest salaries. Teachers’ unions also affect the structural determinants of teachers’ salaries, offering some additional evidence supporting a median voter model. The proportion of unionized teachers with higher levels of education and experience (i.e., the highest paid) is positively related to highest salaries. Finally, our results confirm the importance of demand factors in teacher wage determination.

Conversations about head start salaries: A feminist analysis

This qualitative interview study investigates the Hoover Community Action Agency's Head Start salary policies as described by 3 program administrators and 10 teachers. Feminist theories explain how teachers' and administrators' interpretations of salaries reflect societal beliefs about the value of Head Start teaching. Head Start teachers acknowledge both their low wages and their deep commitment to the Head Start mission. Low- and middle-income teachers differ in how they describe current salary levels: low-income teachers are proactive in salary enhancement efforts and middle-income teachers view salaries as supplemental family income. Agency administrators, while acknowledging the low teacher wages, argue that Head Start employment is more financially lucrative than day care teaching. Administrators cite teacher commitment, not salary, as the best predictor of teacher tenure.

Pattern Bargaining in Education

In this study of negotiated wage determination among teachers in Ohio school districts, we find evidence of pattern bargaining. We develop a measure of pattern following which investigates the level of wages or the county-wide average of teacher wages in a particular county. We find significant evidence of pattern bargaining in school districts irrespective of size over the 1987–1991 period. We find that wealthier districts (as measured by assessed property value and per pupil expenditures) and large districts pay higher salaries. Further, our data show that pattern following among school districts does have a significant effect on teacher salaries in these districts.

“Raising among themselves”: Black educational advancement and the morrill act of 1890

Debate over the curricula of Black colleges and universities dates back to before the turn of the century and involved such noted Black leaders as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. The 1890 Land-Grant Colleges eventually established in 17 southern and border states were created to provide institutions for the teaching of the agricultural and mechanical arts to African-Americans. However, due to their being chronically underfunded and understaffed during the early decades of their existence, they focused mainly on teacher training and to a large extent became state normal schools or teacher colleges for Blacks. I argue that the improvements in public education of southern Blacks at the primary and secondary levels during the 1920s and 1930s induced many graduates of the 1890 institutions to become teachers. At the same time the growing numbers and higher quality of these individuals lead to an increase in the returns to time spent in school and induced increasing numbers of Black parents to send their children to school. During the 1930s expenditures per pupil in Black public schools increased, as did the real wages of Black teachers, while average classroom size fell. At the same time both literacy and school attendance of southern Blacks rose. In no small part these changes were due to 1890 colleges and their students.

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

This study examines the role of wage comparability in the decisions of arbitrators in final offer wage disputes between Wisconsin teachers and school boards in 1977–86. The authors find that wage increases agreed to earlier in the bargaining round by comparable school districts (specifically, other districts within the same athletic conference) had a substantial impact on the decisions of the arbitrators. This result is not predicted by most theoretical studies of interest arbitration, but it is consistent with previous institutional research, the written awards of Wisconsin arbitrators, and the bargaining strategies of the parties.

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

Wages, union membership, and public sector bargaining legislation: Simultaneous equations with an ordinal qualitative variable

A simultaneous equations model of teachers’ wages and unionization is constructed. The exogenous impact of collective bargaining legislation is captured by conditioning the wage-union system on an ordinal qualitative variable. A new estimation method involving N-chotomous probit and two-stage least squares is developed. The estimation results are consistent with a private interest theory of regulation, predicting that legislators will avoid direct subsidization of teacher wages. By comparison it is also shown that a conventional dummy variable specification of the qualitative legislative outcomes will yield misleading results.

Occupational Segregation, Teachers' Wages, and American Economic Growth

National, state, and individual-level data are used to explore the implications of the crowding of educated women into the teaching profession in nineteenth-century America. It is found that the more young women attended school, the lower were teacher wages and the price of educational services. Through this mechanism young women paid for their own education and, by lowering the price of educational services, helped America develop the best-educated population in the world by the century's end.

Analysis of teacher wage incentive programs for promoting staff stability in a large urban school district

This study examines the effectiveness of paying teachers in large urban areas a salary differential, also known as “combat pay,” for teaching at racially isolated or all-minority schools. In a selected sample of seven racially isolated schools (two elementary, three junior, and two senior high schools), “combat pay” was found not to be an effective method for either attracting or retaining high quality teachers. The study also finds that the types of teachers “purchased” with this incentive program are more a function of supply side changes (new, young, inexperienced, probationary teachers looking for employment, or teachers from similar “quality” school sites) than demand side changes (older. more experienced regular teachers attracted to the program because of the salary increment). Alternative uses of these funds for purposes such as reducing class size, improving working conditions, and other nonpecuniary benefits might be more effective in meeting district objectives.

Teachers, Unions, and Wages in the 1970s: Unionism Now Pays

This paper provides evidence that confirms the results of previous studies that teacher unionism produced relatively small wage gains during the early 1970s, but it also shows that union gains increased substantially in the late 1970s. The evidence is based on an application of two complementary research designs—cross-section wage-level regressions and cross-section wage-change regressions—to national samples of teacher data for 1974–75 and 1977–78. The authors conclude that the union/nonunion wage differential among teachers reached 12 to 22 percent by the late 1970s, and during the period 1974–78 the real wages of unionized teachers increased while those of nonunionized teachers declined. They offer several possible explanations for these trends.

My Opinions Concerning the Calculation of Teachers' Salaries

The directive concerning work in 1956 to reform the wages of teachers, administrative personnel, and workers in secondary schools, primary schools, and normal schools was issued on July 9 by the Ministry of Education to the various educational departments and bureaus of the provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities. This wage reform work, involving nearly two million teachers, administrative personnel, and workers, will begin on a nationwide scale. In this wage reform, administrative personnel, workers, and secondary and primary school teachers (especially the latter) will not only have their pay levels raised considerably, but also, in accordance with present conditions and the needs of the development of our undertaking, the wage system will be improved, new wage guidelines established, and the existing wage-grade system altered. For this reason, the directive of the Ministry of Education has emphasized the following: "This year's wage reform in the educational field will guarantee a rational calculation of ranks to realize the principle of pay according to work.

The Economic Basis for the Teacher's Wage. Lester Dix

<i>The Economic Basis for the Teacher's Wage</i>. Lester Dix

The Economic Basis for the Teacher's Wage. Lester Dix

Previous articleNext article No AccessEducational WritingsThe Economic Basis for the Teacher's Wage. Lester Dix Henry C. MorrisonHenry C. Morrison Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 33, Number 3Nov., 1932 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/456859 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Factors Determining Salary Schedules

(1924). Factors Determining Salary Schedules. The Journal of Educational Research: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 199-212.

Boston's Effort to Increase the Wages of Her TeachersIncreased Salaries for Teachers and Members of the Supervising Staff of the Boston Public Schools."Salaries of Public School Teachers in Cities of over 200,000 Population in the United States and in Selected Cities and Towns in Massachusetts," School Document No. 19.

Previous articleNext article FreeEducational WritingsBoston's Effort to Increase the Wages of Her Teachers Increased Salaries for Teachers and Members of the Supervising Staff of the Boston Public Schools. "Salaries of Public School Teachers in Cities of over 200,000 Population in the United States and in Selected Cities and Towns in Massachusetts," School Document No. 19.PDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 28, Number 3Mar., 1920 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/437169 Views: 38 Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). Crossref reports no articles citing this article.