Teachers' initial placement has important implications for student achievement and the distribution of teachers among schools. This paper combines data from a US Baccalaureate and Beyond longitudinal study with school and school district information from the Common Core of Data to study the effects of initial school placement on teacher…

As public budgets have grown tighter over the past decade, states and school districts have sought ways to control the growth of spending. One increasingly common strategy employed to rein in costs is to offer experienced teachers with high salaries financial incentives to retire early. Although early retirement incentive (ERI) programs have been…

When former U.S. congressman and Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel marched triumphantly into the Chicago mayor's office in 2011, he promised to revamp Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in ways that had barely been contemplated in 16 years of mayoral control over the city's sprawling public-school system. This article discusses…

The Common Core State Standards initiative (CCSS) seeks to "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn" at various grade levels. For some education observers, CCSS will finally clarify for students, parents, and educators what students need to know and be able to do if they are to be prepared for…

Extensive teacher mobility can undermine policy efforts to develop a high-quality workforce. In response, policymakers have increasingly championed financial incentives to retain teachers. In 2006, the Denver Public Schools adopted an alternative teacher compensation reform, the Professional Compensation System for Teachers ("ProComp").…

The Common Core of Data (CCD) is an annual collection of public elementary and secondary education data by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of this report is to introduce new data through the presentation of tables containing descriptive…

This report presents data from the School District Finance Survey (F-33) of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system for school year (SY) 2010-11, fiscal year 2011 (FY 11). The F-33 survey is a school district-level financial survey that consists of data submitted annually to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the…

It is widely recognized that teacher quality is the central input in school performance. This insight has put human resource and compensation policies, including performance pay, tenure, alternative route recruitment, and mentoring, at center stage in school reform debates. Some school administrators have been innovators and reform leaders in…

During the 1960s, there was extensive hiring of college and university faculty members. This large group of professors are now at or nearing retirement age. Concerns about the economy, the availability of good health insurance, increased life expectancy, and removal of mandatory retirement laws may influence decisions about when to retire.…

When most people think of the perks of teaching, an image that comes to mind is a shiny apple presented by a gap-toothed pupil. A recent paper by Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation and Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute claims that public school teachers enjoy lavish benefits that are more valuable than their base pay and…

Over the past few years, as cash-strapped states and school districts have faced tough budget decisions, spending on teacher compensation has come under the microscope. The underlying question is whether teachers are fairly paid, underpaid, or overpaid. In this forum, two pairs of respected economists offer very different answers. Andrew Biggs of…

Sick leave banks are a common staple of teacher contracts. Although these banks may benefit employees, they expose school districts to a variety of complications and unintended consequences, including administrative complexity, potential cash flow implications, cost disparities, increased absenteeism, instructional instability, privacy issues, and…

State and local governments today face significant financial stress from the most recent recession, which makes their need to control benefit costs even greater. Revenues declined 22% from 2008 to 2009, mostly because of reduced tax income. At the same time, state and local government spending on unemployment compensation jumped 86%. It is no…

The landscape of public education retirement plans is in an upheaval. A variety of economic, demographic, and political factors make it increasingly difficult for defined-benefit pension plans alone to provide educators with an adequate retirement. As a result, for the nearly seven million educators in America's public primary and secondary…

A year ago at ASBO International's Annual Meeting and Expo in Seattle, Washington, school business officials from four states presented a powerful double-session panel on the status of changes in teacher contracts and educational funding in their regions of the country. The presenters have since updated their comments with new information and…