IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2662.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Principals as Agents? Investigating Accountability in the Compensation and Performance of School Principals

Author

Listed:
  • Billger, Sherrilyn M.

    (Illinois State University)

Abstract

In this study I examine the relationship between accountability (e.g., state sanctions for poor performance, or the presence of goals required by the district) and public secondary principal pay and school performance. Though such incentives and standards are increasingly common, the existing literature provides little evidence on the effectiveness of these policies. I explore cross-sectional variation in data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, and use quantile regressions where the conditional distributions of pay and school outcomes reflect variation in performance that is not observable in the data. I find that accountability coincides with lower college matriculation rates and lower principal pay, particularly for the best principals. On the other hand, accountability corresponds to higher retention rates at the worst schools. Though they may not be directly rewarded, school principals appear to act as agents for students in danger of dropping out.

Suggested Citation

  • Billger, Sherrilyn M., 2007. "Principals as Agents? Investigating Accountability in the Compensation and Performance of School Principals," IZA Discussion Papers 2662, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2662
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp2662.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1982. "Two Stage Least Absolute Deviations Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 689-711, May.
    2. T. Paul Schultz & Germano Mwabu, 1998. "Labor Unions and the Distribution of Wages and Employment in South Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 680-703, July.
    3. Hanushek, Eric A & Rivkin, Steven G & Taylor, Lori L, 1996. "Aggregation and the Estimated Effects of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 611-627, November.
    4. Eide, Eric & Showalter, Mark H., 1998. "The effect of school quality on student performance: A quantile regression approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 345-350, March.
    5. Eberts, Randall W. & Stone, Joe A., 1988. "Student achievement in public schools: Do principals make a difference?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 291-299, June.
    6. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413.
    7. Omar Arias & Walter Sosa-Escudero & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Individual heterogeneity in the returns to schooling: instrumental variables quantile regression using twins data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 7-40.
    8. Figlio, David N., 1999. "Functional form and the estimated effects of school resources," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 241-252, April.
    9. Jesse Levin, 2001. "For whom the reductions count: A quantile regression analysis of class size and peer effects on scholastic achievement," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 221-246.
    10. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Richard P. Chaykowski & Randy A. Ehrenberg, 1988. "Determinants of the Compensation and Mobility of School Superintendents," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 41(3), pages 386-401, April.
    11. James H. Stock & Motohiro Yogo, 2002. "Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression," NBER Technical Working Papers 0284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kenneth J. Meier & Laurence J. O'Toole, 2002. "Public management and organizational performance: The effect of managerial quality," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 629-643.
    13. Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1990. "Relative Performance Evaluation for Chief Executive Officers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 30, April.
    14. Stephen L. Jacobson, 1989. "The Effects of Pay Incentives on Teacher Absenteeism," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(2), pages 280-286.
    15. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    16. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    17. Stone, Joe A., 1985. "Determinants of administrators' salaries in public schools: Differences for men and women," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 105-109, April.
    18. Ladd, Helen F., 1999. "The Dallas school accountability and incentive program: an evaluation of its impacts on student outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall.
    20. Ballou, Dale & Podgursky, Michael, 1995. "What makes a good principal? How teachers assess the performance of principals," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 243-252, September.
    21. Chubb, John E. & Moe, Terry M., 1988. "Politics, Markets, and the Organization of Schools," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 1065-1087, December.
    22. Brewer, Dominic J., 1993. "Principals and student outcomes: Evidence from U.S. high schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 281-292, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Billger, Sherrilyn M., 2007. "Principal Accountability at Private Secondary Schools," IZA Discussion Papers 3162, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Miller, Ashley, 2013. "Principal turnover and student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 60-72.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sherrilyn M. Billger, 2007. "Principals as Agents? Investigating Accountability in the Compensation and Performance of School Principals," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(1), pages 90-107, October.
    2. Billger, Sherrilyn M., 2007. "Principal Accountability at Private Secondary Schools," IZA Discussion Papers 3162, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Kan, Kamhon & Tsai, Wei-Der, 2004. "Obesity and risk knowledge," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 907-934, September.
    4. Juliana Guimarães & Breno Sampaio, 2007. "The Influence Of Family Background And Individual Characteristics On Entrance Tests Scores Of Brazilian University Students," Anais do XXXV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 35th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 092, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    5. Kuo, Chii-Shyan & Yu, Shih-Ti, 2013. "The non-uniform pricing effect of employee stock options using quantile regression," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 400-415.
    6. Ma, Lingjie & Koenker, Roger, 2006. "Quantile regression methods for recursive structural equation models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 471-506, October.
    7. Muller, Christophe, 2018. "Heterogeneity and nonconstant effect in two-stage quantile regression," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 3-12.
    8. Chowdhury, Biplob & Jeyasreedharan, Nagaratnam & Dungey, Mardi, 2018. "Quantile relationships between standard, diffusion and jump betas across Japanese banks," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 29-47.
    9. Christophe Muller, 2019. "Linear Quantile Regression and Endogeneity Correction," Biostatistics and Biometrics Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 9(5), pages 123-128, August.
    10. RAMDANI, Dendi & VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN, Arjen, 2009. "Board independence, CEO duality and firm performance: A quantile regression analysis for Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand," ACED Working Papers 2009003, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    11. Giambona, Francesca & Porcu, Mariano, 2015. "Student background determinants of reading achievement in Italy. A quantile regression analysis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 95-107.
    12. Khalifa, Maha & Othman, Hakim Ben & Hussainey, Khaled, 2018. "The effect of ex ante and ex post conservatism on the cost of equity capital: A quantile regression approach for MENA countries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 239-255.
    13. Sheng-Tung Chen & Hsiao-I. Kuo & Chi-Chung Chen, 2012. "Estimating the extreme behaviors of students performance using quantile regression -- evidences from Taiwan," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 93-113, December.
    14. Juliana Guimarães & Breno Sampaio, 2008. "Mind the Gap: Evidences from Gender Differences in Scores in Brazil," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807211527140, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    15. Fabrizio Pompei & Mirella Damiani & Andrea Ricci, 2019. "Family firms, performance-related pay, and the great crisis: evidence from the Italian case," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 28(5), pages 1193-1225.
    16. Tae-Hwan Kim & Christophe Muller, 2020. "Inconsistency transmission and variance reduction in two-stage quantile regression," Post-Print hal-02084505, HAL.
    17. Liu, Sezhu & Hite, Diane, 2013. "Measuring the Effect of Green Space on Property Value: An Application of the Hedonic Spatial Quantile Regression," 2013 Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 2013, Orlando, Florida 143045, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    18. Michelle L. Barnes & Anthony W. Hughes, 2002. "A quantile regression analysis of the cross section of stock market returns," Working Papers 02-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    19. Gabriela Bezerra De Medeiros & Marcelo Savino Portugal & Edilean Kleber Da Silva Bejarano Aragon, 2016. "Endogeneity And Nonlinearities In Central Bank Of Brazil’S Reaction Functions: An Inverse Quantile Regression Approach," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 061, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    20. Gabriela Bezerra Medeiros & Marcelo Savino Portugal & Edilean Kleber da Silva Bejarano Aragón, 2017. "Endogeneity and nonlinearities in Central Bank of Brazil’s reaction functions: an inverse quantile regression approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1503-1527, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    pay for performance; school principals; school accountability; education finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2662. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.