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September 04, 2006
Teachers and pay
School districts and states all around the country are trying to attract and keep good teachers. Many say that good salaries play a big role in getting good students to go into the field of teaching, and N.C. State University economist Mike Walden says that there's evidence to support the claim.
"We have a new study that looked at the qualifications of students going into teaching between the years of 1989 and 2003, and what it found was that an increase in the starting pay of teachers was positively related to the aptitude of students going into the teaching field," says Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "That’s one reason why I think in North Carolina there’s been so much focus on the beginning pay of teachers."
"But -- big 'but' here -- the study also found that the possibility of higher pay in other fields outside of teaching worked to reduce the quality of students going into teaching," he adds. "So those in the teaching profession not only watch their pay, they watch the pay of others."
Posted by deeshore at September 4, 2006 08:43 AM