COMP NEWS – A landmark study has suggested that students achieve higher marks in schools when taught by educators who are well-compensated for their roles.
Economist Emma García, formerly based at the Economic Policy Institute and now a Senior Researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, and Eunice Sookyung Han, an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Utah specializing in labor relations and educational policy, carried out the study, which is published in the journal SAGE Open.
García and Han combined numerous national data sets of teacher base salaries and student standardized test performance for grades three through eight, with accurate values down to the district level. The total number of school districts in the sample is roughly 10,000.
The results, which accounted for other influencing characteristics within the surveyed districts, found an association between higher salaries and students who performed better academically.
Overall, García and Han discovered a “modest” association between higher salaries and improved test scores for every grade level. On the whole, every 10% increase in teacher salary was associated with about a 0.2 point boost to average math and English scores.
As for why higher teacher salaries lead to improved academic outcomes, the researchers speculate that increased pay attracts higher-quality candidates, boosts retention, and heightens morale and enthusiasm for the job.
While the improvement in academic scores was fairly small overall, study authors Garcia and Han believe the cumulative effects could be enormous if teacher raises were implemented nationwide.
“With significantly higher teacher salaries… schools would be able to retain and attract highly qualified teachers, and help build a relatively stronger teaching workforce. Eventually, the long-run effect of higher base salaries on district performance may be larger than the short-run effects that we estimate in this study.”
To read more about the study on student performance under well-compensated teachers, click here.
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