ERIC Number: ED671991
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Feb
Pages: 64
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Investing in the Teacher Workforce: Experimental Evidence on Teachers' Preferences. EdWorkingPaper No. 22-528
Virginia S. Lovison; Cecilia H. Mo
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
While investing in the teacher workforce is central to improving schools, school resources are notoriously limited, forcing school leaders to make difficult decisions on how to prioritize funds. This paper examines a critical input to resource allocation decisions: teacher preferences. Using an original, online discrete choice survey experiment with a national sample of 1,030 U.S. teachers, we estimate how much teachers value different features of a hypothetical teaching job. The findings show that (a) teachers value access to special education specialists, counselors, and nurses more than a 10% salary increase or 3-student reduction in class size, (b) investments in school counselors and nurses are strikingly cost-effective, as the value teachers alone place on each of these support roles far exceeds the per teacher cost of funding these positions, and (c) teachers who are also parents treat a 10% salary increase and a child care subsidy of similar value as near perfect substitutes. These novel estimates of teachers' willingness to pay for student-based support professionals challenge the idea that inadequate compensation lies at the root of teacher workforce challenges and illustrate that reforms that exclusively focus on salary as a lever for influencing teacher mobility (e.g. transfer incentives) may be poorly aligned to teachers' preferences. [Funding for this report was provided by the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans.]
Descriptors: Teacher Salaries, Salary Wage Differentials, Teacher Persistence, Teacher Recruitment, Work Environment, Teacher Attitudes, Public School Teachers, Elementary School Teachers, Secondary School Teachers, Class Size, Coaching (Performance), School Nurses, Child Care, School Counselors, Special Education
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Brown University Box 1985, Providence, RI 02912. Tel: 401-863-7990; Fax: 401-863-1290; e-mail: annenberg@brown.edu; Web site: https://annenberg.brown.edu/
Related Records: EJ1406044
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Elementary Education; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A