How to boost teacher pay, raise student performance

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Feb 24, 2015, 08:15 ET

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- It is possible to increase teacher pay and advance student performance without new resources. A new analysis from the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University reveals a meaningful and cost-neutral option to improve teacher pay.

By adding students to classes taught by the most effective teachers, districts would require fewer teachers overall. The resulting savings from the reduced workforce could be repurposed as bonuses for the teachers taking on larger classes, according to Paying the Best Teachers More to Teach More Students by Dr. Marguerite Roza and Amanda Warco.

Policymakers have struggled to raise teacher pay in an environment of constrained resources. Now, with "strategic class size increases of three students for the most effective teachers," there is a way forward to reward and retain the best teachers and, in the bargain, elevate student achievement.

Roza and Warco analyzed teacher costs and enrollment data in one school district (Cypress-Fairbanks ISD near Houston, Texas) and incorporated the results of other research on class-sizes and student outcomes to posit their findings.

Roza computes a savings of over $11 million if every teacher in the top performance quartile in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD took on three additional students in 2012-2013. If the district had reapplied the savings to those teaching the larger classes, this would have translated to bonuses of $8,009 per elementary teacher, and $8,313 and $8,359 for middle and high school teachers respectively—a raise of between 16% and 17% of base salary.

Noting that conventional opinion tends to favor smaller class sizes, Roza and Warco reference research showing that:

student learning increases in the classes taught by the most effective teachers,
teachers prefer to teach more students when they are paid substantially more to do so, and
parents prefer for their child to be taught by an effective teacher, even if the class size is larger.

Because strategically enlarging some classes is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, Roza and Warco emphasize "the savings only materialize if a district does indeed reduce its teacher rolls over time." Nevertheless, Roza stresses, "Given the consensus on the importance of excellent teachers, the imperative to improve student outcomes, and the ongoing resource pressures districts will continue to face, it's worth it to rethink uniform class size policies and explore paying the best teachers more to take on more students."

The researchers pulled together data from several resources in order to compile estimates of how increasing class sizes might play out in each of the 50 states. The potential for bonuses ranged from a high of more than $15,000 in Massachusetts to much lower in states such as Colorado and Mississippi. These state-by-state estimates are laid out in the appendix of the paper.

The complete report, "Paying the Best Teachers More to Teach More Students" is available online at: http://edunomicslab.org/paying-the-best-teachers-more-to-teach-more-students/

About Edunomics Lab
Edunomics Lab, a university-based research center dedicated to exploring and modeling complex education fiscal decisions and growing the capacity of education leaders on the topic of education finance. The Edunomics Lab is affiliated with the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. The report is part of the "Rapid Response" brief series, designed to bring relevant fiscal analyses to policymakers amidst the current economic crisis.

Contact
Laura Anderson
206-276-3172
[email protected]
www.edunomicslab.org

SOURCE Edunomics Lab