I. Introduction
Teacher organizations such as the National Education
Association and the American Federation of Teachers are greatly opposed to
school choice in its different forms such as charter schools, vouchers, tax
credits for private school tuition, and inter-district choice). This makes an
impression that teachers merely stand to lose from school choice. However, in
theory, schools facing choice-based incentives would have a higher demand for
teachers who enhance the schools’ ability in attracting enrollees. In the long
run, school choice would influence who becomes (and stays) a teacher if it
impacts schools’ demand for particular teacher attributes.
If school choice were to have an effect on schools’ demand
for particular teacher attributes, the concern would be identifying what are
those characteristics. Moreover, such demand would create “winners” and
“losers” among present teachers as some would find greater or lesser demand for
their services. However, society should not only limit their interest on the
impact of choice on incumbent teachers but also on the aspiring teachers (who
are in an environment of greater school choice). Furthermore, society is
assumed to be essentially interested in the education received by children,
which is a function of who chooses to teach, thus somewhat indirectly a
function of choice, when choice influences the demand for particular teacher
attributes.
The empirical strategy for this study is grounded on a
simple economic argument: If schools that are subject to stronger choice-based
incentives have higher demand for particular teacher attributes, the salary
paid for that attributes and the amount of that characteristics hired should be
higher. Thus, schools should be shifting upwards the supply curve for that
attribute.
This is tested using two types of evidence. First, the
traditional form of choice – choice of private schools, Tiebout choice among
public school districts, and parents’ selection of school by picking a
residence – is analyzed. Traditional forms of choice are necessary since
different metropolitan areas have various long-run, general equilibria having
diverse amounts of traditional school choice. In comparing various metropolitan
areas, the primary empirical setback is determining the exogenous variations in
their degree of traditional school choice.
However, traditional school choice does not fully reflect
the incentives that are produced by reforms like charter schools. Thus the
second analysis would deal with comparing charter school teaching to public and
private school teaching. The focus would be on the query: do charter schools
pay more for the desired teacher attributes, or hire more of that attributes?
In dealing with this analysis, three empirical challenges arise:
1. It is
curial to evaluate schools in similar environment
2. It is
necessary to make certain that the variations are not merely composition
effects
3. Any
teacher study in choice schools is influenced by the fact that most choice
schools are new school, thus making it hard to identify the teaching aspects
that are defined by the school’s being a choice school versus the school’s
being a new school.
II. The Teaching
Profession and School Choice: What is Known
Several previous literatures have illustrated that teachers’
unions compressed the spread of teacher salaries within a district so that
teachers having the same seniority and the same level degree are expected to
receive close if not identical wages.
Undeniably however, the discrepancies are too small to make
teaching an equivalently appealing profession to people having more and less
skill and abilities. According to studies such as Murnane (1984), Maski (1987),
Murnane and Olsen (1989, 1990), and Monk (1994), people having high aptitude or
skills on certain subjects are less inclined to teach or less likely to stay
teaching if they do start. This concern has gotten even more severe as other
occupations such as management, law and medicine began to accommodate women,
and such professions are favored due to higher reward in terms of seniority.
This study also deals with “professionalization” of
teaching, a movement that includes policies like in-service training,
apprenticeships and peer instruction, higher certification standards for new
teachers and rewards for teachers earning additional credentials. The movement
involves an element that is characteristic of most occupation, but is not
combined with the market orientation of most jobs, where credentials retain
minimal standards and rewards are greatly based on the market’s perception on a
professional. However, “professionalization” is a misnomer for the movement as
it presently stands, since the bundle of policies is more of a reflection of
craft unions considering their opposition to market orientation and their
traditional dependence on credentials. However, many teachers do desire
teaching to be more professional, in terms of being filled with high
productivity individuals who are given rewards in line with their performance.
Lastly, it is helpful to consider the choice effects by
comparing teachers in regular public and private schools, given that the latter
are regularly subject to market forces and have an incentive to hire teachers
who draws in tuition-paying pupils. In the study conducted by Ballou (1996) and
Ballou and Podgrusky (1997, 1998) it was observed that private schools value
teacher skills more in employing decisions than public schools do. Moreover,
the teacher pay in private schools is less compressed teacher pay and more
closely linked to skills, in association to public schools.
However, there are number of reasons private school tuitions
are not ideal guide to what teachers will experience in choice schools. Private
schools normally pay teacher wages that are about 60 percent of local public
school wages is possibly due to:
1. Subject
to different financial restraint: Private school tuition is not government
financed and parents of students of private schools are required to pay taxes
that support the public schools
2. Religious
affiliations: Private schools are more likely to have a religious affiliation
3. Student
population: Private schools choose students through admission testing
III. Empirical Study
A. The
Empirical Strategy for Comparing Metropolitan Areas with Different Degrees of
Choice
Consider an index of the degree to which schools are subject
to incentives that are determined by parents’ choice, assuming that the teacher
supply in terms of teacher attributes, number of individuals, degrees, and so
on, is similar for all in the United States. Testing on whether the choice
leads to schools demanding more for a certain teacher attributes may, however,
have a problem. For instance, if a metropolitan area has more employment in
high technology industries, it may have a higher demand for teachers possessing
math and science skills; and employment in such industries may just be
inadvertently correlated with the school choice index. Thus making it crucial
to control for observable factors that are potential determinants of demand for
certain teacher attributes.
The test would be more useful if metropolitan areas have
equivalent supplies of teachers. However, an omitted determinant of the teacher
supply is not likely to produce a false conclusion that school choice increases
or decreases the demand for a certain teacher attributes.
B. The
Empirical Strategy for Comparing Public, Charter, and Private School
In considering the comparison of schools in different
sectors (public, private and charter), the test will be on the assumption that
charter and private schools have higher choice-driven incentives than public
schools. The identification problem in this test is that the presence of
charter (or private) school may mirror factors in an area’s demand for teacher
attributes, also, charter schools are not equally distributed across the United
States due to the considerable discrepancies in states’ charter school laws.
Moreover, an additional problem with such comparison would
be charter schools may enter and merely replace a part of the public school
sector which had demand for teacher attributes that similar to the demands of
charter schools for teacher aspects. Taking this into account before comparing,
it can be observed that the gap between the charter and public school sectors
could be more precisely described as a composition effect.
C. The
Measurement of Teacher Characteristics and the Wages Paid to those
Characteristics
The quantity of teacher attributes in metropolitan areas is
measured by taking the weighted mean of the teachers attributes in the SASS.[1]
The salary of a teacher attribute is measured by calculating the slope of the
relationship between teachers’ log earnings and teachers’ log attributes among
teachers in the metropolitan area.
D. Instrumental
Variables for the Metropolitan Area Measures of School Choice
Metropolitan areas in the United States significantly differ
in the extent to which parents can simply select a residence in another school
district (Tiebout choice) and the tuition paid to private school of a certain
quality. The Tiebout choice or traditional choice among public school districts
differs among metropolitan areas primarily due to random topographic and
historical factors.
A particularly good measure of the degree of Tiebout choice
in a metropolitan area is equal to 1 minus a Herfindahl index based on the
enrollment district shares in the metropolitan area. This is the probability
that in an arbitrary encounter, two students in the metropolitan area would be
admitted into different school districts. Thus if there were only one district,
the probability would be equal to one. In contrast, having more than one
district, the probability would become very small.
Furthermore, the number of private school places (of a
certain quality) that are accessible at a specific tuition differs across
metropolitan areas in the United States. For instance, in several metropolitan
areas, about 15 percent of the elementary student population is registered in
private schools where tuition is roughly two-thirds of the schools’ per-student
spending. For other metropolitan areas, less than one percent of the elementary
school population is enrolled in such schools, which is low comparing to a
typical metropolitan area wherein it is about six percent. In other words, the
private schooling supply differs across metropolitan areas, hence, the extent
to which parents have a selection between public and private schools changes
across metropolitan areas.
IV. Data
The strategy for this study requires data on teachers,
school districts, private schooling, demographics, geography (streams), and
religion.
The SASS is a stratified random sample of public and private
school teachers and administrator in the United States. The 1993-1994 sample
which comprises of 47,105 public school teachers is primarily used for the
study. For some variables, the 1993-1994 sample is pooled with the 1990-1991
sample (46,705 public school teachers) in order to maximize the number of
teachers who stand for each metropolitan area. Some of the SASS variables used
are:
1. Teacher’s
salary
2. Years
of teaching experience – which may indicate the likelihood of remaining as a
teacher for the following years
3. College
where the baccalaureate degree was earned – an indicator the teacher was a math
or science major
4. Number
of undergraduate and graduate courses taken in math and science – an indicator
if the baccalaureate degree earned by the teacher is in a field of the arts and
sciences as opposed to a degree in education
5. Number
of hours per week (beyond the required hours) spent on activities linked to the
students’ academic progress
6. Number
of hours per week (beyond the required hours) spent on activities linked to the
students’ extra-curricular progress
The survey’s objective was to give evidence on who becomes a
charter school teacher. The response rate to the survey, however, was roughly
70 percent (slightly lower for administrators, and somewhat higher for
teachers).
Although the SASS does not include a measure of individual
teachers’ proficiency; the survey has information on each teacher’s college,
which is a good indicator of the quality of education and to some degree, the
skills and abilities of the teacher.
V. The Effects of
Traditional Choice on the Teaching Profession:
Results
The test in this section is if both quantity and the salary
of the attributes are increasing in the measures of choice. The result showed that teacher working in a
metropolitan area with more Tiebout and more private school choice attended
more selective colleges. An area with a high extent of Tiebout choice has
teachers who went to colleges that were ranked 0.403 levels higher than an area
with lower Tiebout choice. An area with a maximal private school choice has
teachers who were enrolled in colleges that were ranked 0.13 levels greater
than an area having minimal private school choice.
In addition, since teachers are known to be excessively
drawn from the bottom half of the college-going populations’ capacity spread,
comparisons were made on who are likely to attend a college that is at least
“competitive plus” in selectivity. The results confirm that school in an area
having higher Tiebout choice demand more college quality from teachers. The finding
showed that enrollment in a college that is at least “competitive plus” is
higher in metropolitan areas having more traditional choice.
- Teacher
in an area with a greater degree of Tiebout choice has 8.4 percent higher
possibility to have attended such college, than a teacher in an area with
minimal Tiebout choice.
- While
an area having a higher degree of private school choice has an additional 5.4
percent likelihood of attending a college that is at least “competitive plus”.
In terms of salary, schools that are in metropolitan areas
with higher Tiebout choice seem to be moving up the supply curve for teachers’
college quality. However, it is uncertain if metropolitan areas with greater
private school choice also have higher demand.
- Comparing
to teachers in an area having minimal Tiebout choice, a teacher in an area with
higher level of Tiebout choice is given salary that is 8.0 percent higher if
that teacher attended a college that is a t least “competitive plus”.
- The
influence, however, of the level of private school choice on salary for this
attribute is not statistically significant.
Additionally, it was observed that a teacher in an area with
a greater degree of Tiebout choice is 16.5 percent more likely to attend a
college that is at least “competitive” (in comparison to a teacher in an area
with little Tiebout choice), that teacher would also receive a salary that is
6.6 percent higher if the college attended is at least “competitive”. While an
area having a higher degree of private school choice has an extra 5.3 percent
possibility of attending a college that is at least “competitive”, however, the
extent of private school choice does not have a statistically significant
impact on the salary for this attribute.
Another aspect dealt with in this paper is motivated by the
considerable evidence that implies that schools have a certain need for
teachers having math or science skills. The findings suggest that in areas
having greater traditional school choice, there is a greater likelihood that
teachers have math and science skills:
- Teachers
in an area with higher Tiebout choice: 15.2 percent more likely to be a math or
science major and took 0.238 more math and science courses
- Teacher
in an area with higher private school choice: 9.7 percent more likely to be
math or science major, with 0.20 more math and science courses.
In addition, those teachers with math or science skills, who
are working in metropolitan areas having more traditional choice earn more.
- Teacher
in an area with higher Tiebout choice earns 15.6 percent more
- Teacher
in an area with higher degree of private school choice earns 14.1 percent more.
These results indicate that schools in settings with greater
traditional choice have a higher demand for teachers with particular subject
area (math and science) skills.
In addition, it seems that schools – that are subject to
Tiebout choice – demand greater effort and independent from their teachers,
however it is unclear what the impact of private school choice was.
Meanwhile, some of the observations on the relationships
between traditional choice and teacher credentials:
1. No
variation in whether teachers in the SASS have a baccalaureate degree
2. A
variation whether holding a master’s degree;
3. A
variation whether they are certified at all; or certified in the area they
actually teach.
It is worth mentioning that many teacher unions’ contracts
stipulate wage hikes for master’s degrees and for being certified. Thus, the
concern is if traditional school choice stimulates salary increases to be
greater than if there is the absence of choice.
Traditional choice seems to have no statistically
significant impact on the quantity of master’s degrees and has little, negative
impact on the salary increases associated with the master’s degrees. It also
has no statistically significant impact on the quantity of certification, or
the salary paid to certification.
However, Tiebout choice seems to increase the demand for certified
teachers.
An interesting digression is that schools with higher school
choice find it harder to hold on to teachers having math or science (or
certain) skills.
Overall, it appears that traditional forms of school choice
raise demand of schools for teachers who attended selective colleges, have math
and science skills, subject area proficiency, and so on. However, traditional
forms of choice do not seem to boost schools’ demand for teachers holding
master’s degrees or teaching certifications.
VI. Results
Comparing Charter, Public and Private Teachers
One finding suggests that charter schools demand more
teachers who are alumni of colleges that are at least “competitive plus” and/or
majored in a subject area, specifically math or science – as they have higher
share of such teachers and provide higher salary by a certain percentage.
In addition the disparity between the charter and public
school teachers is greatly statistically significant. For instance, public
sector and charter school teachers are paid 0.05 percent less and 4.9 percent
more, respectively, for every extra instructional hour they work. This implies
that charter schools demand teachers who are eager to provide extra lecture
time. Surprisingly, teachers in all sectors work for roughly similar
non-instructional hours per week.
On the other hand, public schools appear to have a higher
proportion of teachers with master’s degrees in comparison to charter and
private schools. Also, public schools seem to pay more to such teachers.
However, it is uncertain what the salary premium is for certifications, even
though close to 100 percent, 87.4 percent and 65.2 percent of public, charter
and private schools teacher, respectively, are certified. In general, public
schools show a higher demand for degrees and certification when compared to
charter and private schools.
Meanwhile, with regards to the composition effects, for the
three types of district it is difficult to find any difference in the pattern –
let alone determine a pattern that would back up the concept of composition
effects. If there are composition effects, for example, if charter schools
disproportionately admit high effort teachers, it is most likely that teacher
attendance rate drops in district having huge charter school incursions,
however, this is not the case (in any type of district).
All in all, there do not seem to have composition effects in
the districts in which they are expected to be found (if they existed).
VII. Other
Differences Between Charter, Public and Private Teachers
Another finding indicates that the reason that charter
school teachers hold teaching experience of roughly 10 years, in contrast to
public and private school teachers with roughly 15 years of experience, is that
they have experience in other occupations.
In addition, teachers for all sectors are somewhat equally
likely to claim that they plan to carry on teaching. This is surprising given it is expected that
charter school teachers have higher likelihood of not continuing teaching,
given that they are younger, usually on their first job, and testing a new type
of school; while it is not likely for veteran public school teachers to act
like teachers trying out different schools.
Findings on charter school teachers:
- The
average charter school teachers earn 8.2 percent below the average public
school teacher, but 50 percent above the average private school teacher.
- They
are also likely to receive extra pay as a bonus for extra work than public
school teachers.
- They
have more required hours per week on top of their greater “additional” hours.
- (And
private school teachers) are somewhat more likely to assign homework (than
public school teachers) in the previous week.
- It is
important to mention that many administrators stated in the survey that they
had merely implemented the local school district’s wage scale when they began
their charter school.
- They
believe that they have the most influence over school policy, even though they
consider themselves to have roughly the same control over class room decision
as private school teacher. (Public school teachers think they have lesser
influence on school policy and control over class room decision, in comparison
to charter and private school teachers).
VIII. Conclusions
The result of the study indicates that school choice could
alter the teaching profession by:
- Increasing
the demand for teachers having high quality college schooling,
- Increasing
the demand for teachers with subject area, specifically math and science,
proficiency.
- Increasing
the demand for teachers providing extra effort and
- Decreasing
the demand for certification.
All in all, the finding suggests that school choice would
produce a more high-powered incentive environment within the field of teaching
– as teachers would be required to hold higher human capital levels and greater
effort in exchange for higher marginal salaries for such attributes. Given
increased school choice, less motivated teachers might face smaller salary
hikes than some of their peers – thus those teachers have a higher likelihood
of leaving the teaching profession much early.
Source:
Caroline M. Hoxby, “Would
School Choice Change the Teaching Profession.” Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 37, No. 4, (2002), pp. 846-891.
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