A growing body of research has documented the uneven distribution of teacher quality across and within school districts. This paper focuses on the effect of the seniority-based transfer rules in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) on teacher sorting. Specifically, as the seniority-preferred transfer rules in CBAs allow the more experienced…

Substantial teacher turnover poses a challenge to staffing public schools with effective teachers. The scope of the teacher retention challenge across school districts, however, remains poorly defined. Applying consistent data practices and analytical techniques to administrative data sets from 16 urban districts, we document substantial…

Many large urban school districts are rethinking their personnel management strategies, often giving increased control to schools in the hiring of teachers, reducing, for example, the importance of seniority. If school hiring authorities are able to make good decisions about whom to hire, these reforms have the potential to benefit schools and…

This paper analyzes attrition patterns among teachers in New York City public elementary and middle schools and explores whether teachers who transfer among schools, or leave teaching entirely, are more or less effective than those who remain. We find that the first-year teachers who are less effective in improving student math scores have higher…

In education, teacher experience is probably "the" key factor in personnel policies that affect current employees: it is a cornerstone of traditional single-salary schedules; it drives teacher transfer policies that prioritize seniority; and it is commonly considered a major source of inequity across schools and, therefore, a target for…

The professional staff in 33 Catskill Area School Study Council and peripheral area schools for the year ending June 1968 consisted of 70 administrators, 1,557 classroom teachers, and 131 persons in other professional staff capacities. The schools ranged in enrollment from 233 to 3,033. Of the 261 professional staff involved in the total turnover,…

This annual report summarizes, in tabular form, the major aspects of tax-based support of the public schools in New York State. Material is presented under eight chapter headings, as follows: 1) Perspectives in financing public school expenditures during the period 1968-78, 2) State support of education in New York State, 3) budget defeats--1968,…

Offered as a foundation for subsequent analysis, this report presents data on the frequency of teacher turnover in New York State districts from 1972 to 1977 and discusses the methods used for calculations from State Department of Education records. Data drawn from a 1-in-20 random sample totalling 13,000 teachers are analyzed in order to…