Texas District School Analysis

Texas District School Analysis

Teachers Project , ECO N 315, Jadrian Wooten, Fall 2014 .

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The superintendent of a Texas school district wishes to better understand how economic factors affect
inequality in a cademic achievement across the district. Several web sites will be of use in finding out:

To: The Superintendent

From: The Economists

Re: How Economic Factors Affect Inequality In Academic Achievement Across Districts.

Competitiveness of Markets

The competitiveness of pay across the major district schools can be analyzed by the illustration below.

	Salaries	Mathematics	Reading
Midland	43622	99	82
Clarendon	42736	81	95
Farwell	42198	50	60
Calvert Independent school District	42193	93	93
Happy	41444	84	74
Claude Independent school District	40355	82	91
Grandview	40150	98	94
Follett	34796	60	58
Briscoe	34338	84	87
Channing Independent school District	34038	53	71
Groom	34023	83	70
Darrouzett	33821	86	95
Adrian Independent school district	29400	86	86

The performance of teachers is positively affected by the increment of the rate of salaries payable to the teachers. The percentage performance in the TAKS Reading performance seems to improve as salaries continue rise across different schools. The perfectly competitive salaries can be determined by the labor market when marginal factor of the cost of labor equals the equilibrium wage that can be accomplished by the laws of labor supply and demand.

                  Performance in Mathematics & Reading Compared to Increment in Salaries

The performances of the teachers who are well paid are better in Reading than in mathematics as the trend indicates above. However, the increment in salaries for the teachers is also associated with higher and better performance of the students. (Stinebrickner, 2001)

Labour Demand

The demand of experienced teachers is on the increase as most of the teachers who transition to other trades, schools or districts continue to rise. Most schools are willing to pay more for experienced teachers as their performance is much better than the inexperienced teachers. Teachers earning higher salaries are associated with higher performance scores among the students. The demand of experienced teachers is higher than the demand for teachers with less experience.

                 Trend of Salaries and the Percentage of Teachers with Less than 5yrs Experience

The higher salaries also attract teachers with less experience but the teachers who are well compensated perform better than the less compensated teachers even though the level of experience is the same.

Labour Supply

The JHR article focuses mostly on the number or percentage of teachers who transition from teaching in one district, from one school to another or quitting the profession. On the performance of students, the article affirms that on average, new teachers who are still inexperienced register slightly lower scores in student’s average performance. The experienced teachers who are paid much better than the inexperienced ones register good scores in the student performance. (Murnane & Olsen, 1989) Most schools end up having more inexperienced teachers as a result of experience teachers transition to other districts, schools or quit the teaching profession.

The Trend of Teachers with Less Than 5yrs Experience in Economically

Disadvantaged Student Areas

Equilibrium

Certain jobs are relatively more appealing than others for such reasons as better working conditions, more wage benefits, job security, social contribution and greater opportunities for advancements. The concept of compensating salary or wage differentials affirms that most employees will accept low paying jobs if non wage benefits are higher. To accept unappealing jobs, higher salaries have to be paid to compensate the unappealing nature of the jobs.

The perfectly competitive salaries can be determined by the labor market when marginal factor of the cost of labor equals the equilibrium wage that can be accomplished by the laws of labor supply and demand. (Oyer & Schaefer, 2011)

The teaching jobs in regions that are considered disadvantaged may require higher salaries to attract experienced teachers. Other determinants that may influence the wage differentials are community type, ethnicity, gender and other differences that are not responsive salary increments and students characteristics.

The Trend of Teachers with Less Than 5yrs Experience in Economically

Disadvantaged Student Areas

The number of teachers with less than 5 yrs experience is higher in areas with higher economically disadvantaged students. These may be due to the availability of more teacher vancancies with low salaries that can only attract inexperienced teachers.

Output

The general results of teachers with less than 5 years indicate a decreasing trend which means that their general performance is reducing and the performance of students is going down. The schools administration has to control the number of teachers with less than five years experience as their growing numbers may affect the performance of the school negatively.

                Teachers with less than 5yrs Experience Student’s TAKS Math’s % Scores

The pay policies also affect the performance of the school. The trend line on the graph that compares the teachers with less than 5 years experience and the amount of salaries payable indicate that teachers with less than 5 years of experience and are paid higher salaries perform much better than those with lower salaries. The pay however is not the overall retention motivating factor as other determinants like community type, ethnicity, gender and other differences that are not responsive to salary increments and student’s characteristics determine to a large extent the retention and performance of teachers. (Hanushek, Kain and Rivkin, 2004)

               Teachers with less than 5yrs Experience Student’s TAKS Reading % Scores

The Rate of Economically Disadvantaged Students Compared to the Average Operating                      Expenditure per Student.

Finally to conclude, the performance and retention of teachers also rely on other factors beyond the rate of salary compensation. The community type, ethnicity, gender and other differences that are not responsive salary increments and students characteristics determine to a large extent the retention and performance of teachers. The experience of teachers determines the quality of teaching involved. The more experienced teachers perform better than their inexperienced counterparts. The economically disadvantaged students also receive less average operating expenditure per student. Though their performance is not affected by the reduced average operating expenditures.

References

Hanushek, E.A.,  Kain, K.F. and Rivkin, S.G. (2004) Why Public Schools loose Teachers, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 39, No.2 pp. 326-354, University of Wisconsin Press.

Murnane, R.J. & Olsen, R. (1989) The Effects of Salaries and Opportunity Costs on Length of Stay in Teaching: Evidence from Michigan Review of Economics and Statistics 71 (2) 347- 352.

Oyer, P.  & Schaefer, S. (2011) “Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives,” chap. 20, Handbook of Labor Economics, v. 4B, pp. 1769–1823.

Stinebrickner, T.R. (2001) Compensation Policies and Teachers Decisions, International Economics Review 42 (3) 751-779.

Appendices

	Region 16				Teachers		Average Expenditure
	Elementary Schools	TAKS MATH	TAKS Reading	ECON DIS	>5yrs Exp	Salary	Per Student
1	Adrian School	86	86	86	18.5	29400	9207
2	Carver El Academy	86	86	86	28.6	42193	5867
3	Kirksey EL	95	99	93	18.5	42930	6371
4	Bovina EL	93	93	91	30	44245	6410
5	Mimi Farley EL	82	91	99	25.7	41092	5902
6	Channing School	53	71	43	30.6	34038	9559
7	Clarendon EL	81	95	70	29.6	42736	5953
8	Claude El	86	95	99	24.1	40355	5712
9	Darrouzett Schools	50	60	44	26.4	33821	9022
10	Cactus El	60	58	30	32.4	45040	6641
11	Green Acres El	84	87	65	31.3	43622	6404
12	Hillcrest El	98	94	96	27.7	41376	6178
13	Morningside EL	99	82	71	33.2	42189	6116
14	Sunset EL	83	70	51.5	31.9	44226	6596
15	Farewell El	84	74	65	30.4	42198	5973
16	Follett School	90	80	78	23.6	34796	8919
17	Fort Elliot	88	88	90	22.8	34338	7971
18	Grandview-Hopkins	93	93	0	26.5	40150	5667
19	Groom School	90	80	0	21.9	34023	8174
20	Happy El	99	99	99	27.4	41444	5730

Salaries In Different School Districts

School District	Salaries	Performance in Mathematics	Performance in Reading
Midland	43622	99	82
Clarendon	42736	81	95
Farwell	42198	50	60
Calvert Independent school District	42193	93	93
Happy	41444	84	74
Claude Independent school District	40355	82	91
Grandview	40150	98	94
Follett	34796	60	58
Briscoe	34338	84	87
Channing Independent school District	34038	53	71
Groom	34023	83	70
Darrouzett	33821	86	95
Adrian Independent school district	29400	86	86