Personnel Policy and Teacher Quality: Observations on the Current Policy Debate

1. Personnel Policy and Teacher Quality: Observations on the Current Policy Debate Michael Podgursky Department of Economics University of Missouri – Columbia PodgurskyM@missouri.edu http://web.missouri.edu/~econwww/ PDK Meeting Columbia, MO Oct. 21, 2003

2. Problems: Real and Purported • Licensing • Turnover • Pay: Level Versus Structure • Tenure & Collective Bargaining

3. Teacher Licensing • Research • Research Linking Teacher Training or Licensing to Student Achievement is Inconclusive and Provides Little Support For Aggressive Regulation of the Labor Market • Teacher Effects on Student Achievement are Quantitatively Important But Idiosyncratic • A lot of Sophisticated Research is Under Way

5. Teacher Licensing Systems Are So Complex That No One Is in Compliance Anyway MO: 69 academic 171 vocational certificates and endorsements 700+ valid licensing codes

6. Figure 4 Percent of Courses Taught by Teachers With Inappropriate or No Licenses by Expenditure Per Pupil in Average Daily Attendance: Missouri K-12 Public School Districts, 2001-2002 r = .27

7. Figure 5 Percent of Teachers Not Certified and Median Salaries in Westchester County, NY Public School Districts: 2000-2001

8. Teacher Turnover • Too High?

9. “If we know that high quality teaching makes a difference, why isn’t every child in America getting it? The conventional wisdom is that we lack enough good teachers. But, the conventional wisdom is wrong. The real school staffing problem is teacher retention. Our inability to support high quality teaching in many of our schools is driven not by too few teachers entering the profession, but too many leaving it for other jobs. The ability to create and maintain a quality teaching and learning environment in a school is limited not by teacher supply, but by high turnover among teachers who are already there...”National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America’s Children. 2003.

10. The “Perfect Storm” • Late 1999-2000 Witnessed Exceptionally High Rates of Teacher Turnover Due to the Coincidence of Three Factors: • Rising Student Enrollments • Falling Student-Teacher Ratios • Historically Low National Unemployment Rates

11. Public K-12 Teachers and Student Enrollment: U.S. 1990-2001

12. Falling Student-Teacher RatiosU.S. and Missouri, 1987-2001

13. Teacher Turnover in Missouri Public Schools and State Unemployment Rate: 1990-2002

14. Level and Structure of Teacher Pay • Single Salary Schedule - Not Market Based, Suppresses Differences by: • Field • Schools within a District • Effort or Quality of Performance • Rewards Graduate Credits Often of Little Value • Backloading

18. Size of Wage-Setting Units

19. Tenure

21. Collective Bargaining

23. Bottom lines • Standards/Market Model • Shift Focus of Regulation from Inputs to Outputs • Increased Accountability • Expanded School Choice • D3M • Data-Driven Decision Making