Hanushek, Eric, Kain, John, & Rivkin, Steven
Researchers: Eric HanushekJohn KainSteven Rivkin
University Affiliation: Stanford University
Email: hanushek@stanford.edu
Research Question:
Why Public Schools Lose Teachers? Understanding of the effects of salary and other school factors on teacher transitions.
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: NBER -National Bureau of Economics
Journal Entry: Working Paper 8599
Year: 2001
Findings:
- Teacher mobility is much more strongly related to characteristics of the students, particularly race and achievement, than to salary, although salary exerts a modest impact once compensating differentials are taken into account.
- Increases in the campus proportion of students who are Hispanic or Black raises the probability of exiting for non-Hispanic, non-Black teachers.
- Teacher salary is much more strongly related to the probability of switching districts (relative to remaining) than to the probability of exiting the Texas public schools.
- Teaching lower achieving students is strong factor in decisions to leave Texas public schools, and the magnitude of the effect holds across the full range of teacher experience.
- There is strong evidence that non-Black, non-Hispanic teachers systematically prefer non-Black, non-Hispanic students, while the opposite appears to be the case for Black and Hispanic teachers.
- Schools serving a high proportion of students who are academically very disadvantaged and either Black or Hispanic may have to pay an additional, 20,30 or even 50 percent more in salary than those schools serving a predominantly White or Asian, academically well-prepared student body to prevent the leaving of their teachers.