Teacher Mobility in Charter Schools and Traditional Public Schools: A Test of Segmented Labor Market

• In Event: Teachers' Choices and Experiences in the Charter Sector

Abstract

Our study examines the dynamics of teacher labor market in charter and TPSs, guided by theory of segmented labor markets. Specifically, with longitudinal data for Utah K-12 public school teachers during 2003-2011, we employ the Cox proportional hazard model and competing risk model to explore how the timing of newly hired teachers’ decisions to stay, transfer, or exit are associated with teacher and school characteristics for the two types of schools. Our findings show that newly hired teachers in charter schools are far more likely to exit the teaching profession and less likely to transfer to another school than their counterparts at TPSs.

Authors

• Charisse Atibagos Gulosino, University of Memphis

• Yongmei Ni, University of Utah