Exploratory Analysis of the Content and Availability of State Administrative Data on Teacher Compensation. Research and Development Report

摘要

Salaries and benefits for instruction are the largest component of school operating costs for public schools (U.S. Department of Education 2007). The level and structure of this compensation can play an important role in the recruitment and retention of a high-quality teaching workforce. Thus, detailed and reliable data on teacher pay and benefits are important in making informed education policy. Unfortunately, available data do not readily permit reliable comparisons of teacher pay between states or accurate estimates of changes over time. While the sophistication of data systems maintained by states is growing rapidly, no systematic inventory of state-level data collection on teacher compensation has been undertaken. This report identifies state education agencies (SEAs) that maintain records on pay for public school teachers, the comparability of these records, and whether the data might be available to the research community.