Pay for Progress The Relationship Between Florida Districts? Teacher Salary Offerings and Their High School Dropout Rates

Abstract

While teacher effectiveness literature has suggested a potential promising relationship between test-score-based teacher quality and student test score based growth, the question of whether teachers can improve student dropout rates is not as well understood. Grounding our work based on theories that suggest higher salaries may attract better teachers, we utilize panel analyses on three years’ worth of data (2012–2014) to estimate the potential impact of Florida public school districts’ teacher offerings on their dropout rates. We define teacher salaries in three different ways: (1) districts’ average teacher salary, (2) teachers’ earning potential with a given level of education (i.e., bachelor’s and master’s degree holders) within the districts, and (3) districts’ salary-level offering. Our findings support the assertion that improved pay is positively related to lower student dropouts. This finding contributes significantly to the teacher quality, teacher salary, and the high school dropout prevention literature and has policy implications.

Insufficient money and inadequate respect

“…While this may be true for some altruistic individuals, our study supports the importance of monetary incentives to bring additional teachers into the profession. The findings of this study build on the literature of the importance of base salaries for teachers (Tran and Buckman, 2017; Tran, 2017), as it was found to be the most important financial incentive of the traditional compensation package for rural teaching interest. “Better” benefits are often suggested to offset lower teacher wages.…”