Women, the labor market, and the declining relative quality of teachers
Abstract
School officials and policymakers have grown increasingly concerned about their ability to attract and retain talented teachers. A number of authors have shown that in recent years the brightest students-at least those with the highest verbal and math scores on standardized tests-are less likely to enter teaching. In addition, it is frequently claimed that the ability of schools to attract these top students has been steadily declining for years. There is, however, surprisingly little evidence measuring the extent to which this popular proposition is true. We have good reason to suspect that the quality of those entering teaching has fallen over time. Teaching has for years remained a predominately female profession; at the same time, the employment opportunities for talented women outside teaching have soared. In this paper, we combine data from five longitudinal surveys of high school graduates spanning the classes of 1957 to 1992 to examine how the propensity for talented women to enter teaching has changed over time. While the quality of the average new female teacher has fallen only slightly over this period, the likelihood that a female from the top of her high school class will eventually enter teaching has fallen dramatically. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.Download Info
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Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
Volume (Year): 23 (2004)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 449-470
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Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home
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- Polachek, Solomon William, 1981. "Occupational Self-Selection: A Human Capital Approach to Sex Differences in Occupational Structure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(1), pages 60-69, February.
- Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 1999. "Do Higher Salaries Buy Better Teachers?," NBER Working Papers 7082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Claudia Goldin, 2004. "From the Valley to the Summit: The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women's Work," NBER Working Papers 10335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Marigee Bacolod, 2006. "Do Alternative Opportunities Matter? The Role of Female Labor Markets in the Decline of Teacher Quality," Working Papers 06-22, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
- Daniel Aaronson & Katherine Meckel, 2009. "How will baby boomer retirements affect teacher labor markets?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q IV, pages 2-15.
- Sean P. Corcoran & William N. Evans & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "Changing Labor-Market Opportunities for Women and the Quality of Teachers, 1957-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 230-235, May.
- Richard J. Murnane, 2008. "Educating Urban Children," NBER Working Papers 13791, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Larsen, S. Eric, 2010. "Teacher MA attainment rates, 1970-2000," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 772-782, October.
- Benjamin Scafidi & David L. Sjoquist & Todd R. Stinebrickner, 2006.
"Do Teachers Really Leave for Higher Paying Jobs in Alternative Occupations?,"
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy,
De Gruyter, vol. 0(1), pages 8.
- Benjamin Scafidi & David L. Sjoquist & Todd R. Stinebrickner, 2005. "Do Teachers Really Leave for Higher Paying Jobs in Alternative Occupations?," University of Western Ontario, CIBC Centre for Human Capital and Productivity Working Papers 20055, University of Western Ontario, CIBC Centre for Human Capital and Productivity.
- Player, Daniel, 2009. "Monetary returns to academic ability in the public teacher labor market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 277-285, April.
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