The Causes of Teacher Salary Schedule Front-Loading and Back-Loading

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Salary Schedule Shuffling: Drivers and Impacts of Teacher Pay Reforms

Abstract

Both economic theory and empirical evidence suggest that school districts can recruit and retain teachers more effectively and efficiently by offering rapid salary increases earlier in teachers’ careers. Yet the salary schedules by which teachers are commonly paid vary substantially in the extent to which they are “frontloaded” in this way, and many are heavily backloaded. Existing research provides little evidence about why this is the case. Using statewide longitudinal data in California, I find little empirical support for the most common theoretical explanations for backloaded teacher compensation, including district responses to the teacher labor supply, trade-offs with monitoring intensity, and teachers’ union influence and rent-seeking. However, districts do appear to increase salaries when the teacher supply is smaller.

Author

• Paul Bruno, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign