Testing implications of a tournament model of school district salary schedules

Using panel data on the salary schedules of public school teachers and administrators, I look for evidence of a tournament wage structure. A tournament model is presented, where teachers compete for promotion to administrators. Districts can create incentives for teachers by offering either a higher pay premium for promotion or a larger probability of promotion. The model predicts an inverse relationship between these two values. Evidence supporting this prediction is found in the data. In contrast, an alternative model of incentive pay, where returns to seniority substitute for imperfect monitoring, is not supported empirically. This result is consistent with intuition that tenure protections make it hard for districts to fire shirking teachers, making returns to seniority a poor method of providing incentives.     

如何规划员工职业发展

依据马斯洛的需要层次理论，物质需要是人类较低层次的需要，而自我实现才是人的最高层次的需要。职业发展属于满足人的自我实现需要的范畴，因而会产生更大的激励作用。     

How children learn to read and why they fail

The present article considers the contrast between conceptions of reading as a natural and as an unnatural act, relying on the simple view of reading as a theoretical framework (Gough and Tunmer 1986). According to the simple view, reading comprehension is a product of both listening comprehension and decoding. Here it is argued that the comprehension aspect of reading depends on those same—natural—forces that govern acquisition of spoken language, whereas decoding depends on explicit tutelage, with little evidence that children will induce the cipher from simple exposure to written words and their pronunciations (sight-word instruction). Rejecting both sight-word and phonics instruction as inadequate in and of themselves, evidence is reviewed suggesting that successful readers require explicit awareness of the phonological structure of spoken words, which can and should be taught in kindergarten, prior to formal reading instruction. Beyond this point, reading success depends on a modicum of phonics instruction together with extensive practice with reading itself.     

论城市生态绿地系统的建设

介绍生态绿地系统在维持城市生态平衡、提高城市居民生活环境质量方面的主要功能,并提出一个合理的城市生态绿地系统规划的基本方法。     

如何编制企业职工培训计划

编制培训计划的准备工作 计划工作是要在现在与未来的目标之间架起一座"桥梁"。这就存在着对未来目标的"确定"和对现存问题的"诊断",而现存问题往往又是确定未来目标的前提条件。因而在编制计划前需要做大量的准备工作。 1、调查访问,征集需求。为了编制独山子石化2003年职工培训计划,独石化教育中心和职业技术学校远在去年12     

The determinants of school district salary incentives: An empirical analysis of,where and why

Most public school districts in the United States use a salary schedule to determine compensation for teachers within the district. However, some school districts have implemented incentive pay schemes that allow flexibility at the school or even individual teacher level. These compensation schemes in some ways may more closely approximate a competitive labor market. This study examines the factors that influence a district's decision to offer incentive pay using districts from the 1999 to 2000 Schools and Staffing Survey. The results suggest that school districts that face barriers to recruitment or retention and districts that face competition from non-sectarian private schools are more likely to offer incentive pay.     

Teachers’ unions and compensation: The impact of collective bargaining on salary schedules and performance pay schemes

This study examines the impact that collective bargaining has on multiple dimensions of teacher compensation, including average and starting salaries, early and late returns to experience, returns to graduate degrees, and the incidence of different pay for performance schemes. Using data from the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) and a more recent data set, the Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights (TR3), we find that collective bargaining has a significant impact on all aspects of current, qualification-specific salary schedules. Further, we find some evidence that bargaining impacts the design of performance pay plans. Specifically, unions tend to encourage teacher bonuses that are based on additional qualifications or duties, but discourage bonuses that directly reward improved student test scores.     

How and why the CAUT became involved in collective bargaining

Despite a persistent belief to the contrary, most Canadian universities prior to the 1960s did not operate collegially. They were run autocratically. Collective bargaining arose as a means of ensuring true collegiality through negotiations between equals, legally entrenching due process and academic freedom, and providing a clearer and stronger mechanism for dealing with salaries and benefits. This was a revolution from below in the governance of universities. Although the sixties are widely regarded as the age of student revolt, in Canada it was the faculty, not the students, who secured a dramatic change in the power structure of the university through collective bargaining.     

Towards an optimal teacher salary schedule: Designing base salary to attract and retain effective teachers

This study presents the literature’s first estimates of the effect of teacher pay on the distribution of experience among teachers hired by public school districts. Overall, a 1% increase in base salary for teachers of a particular experience level increases the proportion of the targeted teachers hired by 0.04–0.08 percentage points. Pay increases have the largest effect on hire rates among teachers with 2–3 years of experience and the effect diminishes with experience. I show that higher teacher salaries provide a dual benefit of retaining and attracting a more effective distribution of teachers. Districts may also improve student achievement growth at no cost by reshaping their salary schedules so that they are increasing and concave in teacher experience.     

How (and why) to avoid making rational decisions: embracing paradox in school leadership

In delivering ‘school improvement’ school leaders must decide between competing and conflicting demands in the context of uncertainty. Confronted with this there may be a temptation to reduce the complexity, in other words to rationalise the situation. While this may lead to short-term gains, over the longer term such decisions can prove detrimental. In responding to these kinds of situations organisational research has recently taken something of a paradox turn. Indeed, developing practices which are accommodating of paradox is increasingly being seen as a productive and powerful creative strategy for business leaders. The aim of this article was therefore to explore ‘the paradox turn’ for its relevance and utility to school leadership and to examine the implications this gives rise to for schools considered as pluralistic organisations with multiple stakeholders. This pluralism produces layers of complexity and tensions which have their origins in diverse and possibly incommensurable values, calling into question the received wisdom around entrenched concepts such as the necessity for the head teacher to ensure a ‘shared vision’ underpinned by commonly held values.     

关于高校工资结构及工资关系的思考

探讨了当前高等学校的工资结构失衡、工资关系不合理问题，认为进一步调整工资结构、理顺工资关系，逐步建立体现高校自身特点的岗位绩效工资制度，形成有利于吸引人才、稳定人才、用好人才、灵活多样和科学规范的收入分配激励机制。     

Ours to reason why

This is a story of what happened on the Aiguille du Grepon. It is based on fact and designed to reveal both the appearance and reality of motivation in climbing, a combination that is often difficult to express in a traditional academic style. The story differentiates motivation along two dimensions, a goal dimension with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards at opposite ends and a relational dimension with exclusive and inclusive rewards at opposite ends. These polar opposites are integrated in the experience of outdoor adventure through the story. They are further reflected in the attitudes of a previous generation of climbers. It is suggested that these motivations define the games of outdoor adventure in general, and that we should be self-conscious of them both in education and in play.     

Ours to reason why

Abstract

This is a story of what happened on the Aiguille du Grepon. It is based on fact and designed to reveal both the appearance and reality of motivation in climbing, a combination that is often difficult to express in a traditional academic style. The story differentiates motivation along two dimensions, a goal dimension with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards at opposite ends and a relational dimension with exclusive and inclusive rewards at opposite ends. These polar opposites are integrated in the experience of outdoor adventure through the story. They are further reflected in the attitudes of a previous generation of climbers. It is suggested that these motivations define the games of outdoor adventure in general, and that we should be self-conscious of them both in education and in play.     

How and why students make academic progress: Reconceptualizing the student engagement construct to increase its explanatory power

This paper sought to explain how the student engagement construct could be reconceptualized so to increase its capacity to explain course-specific academic progress.To do so, we proposed that agentic engagement should be added as a new engagement component while the status of emotional engagement should be reconsidered. In two longitudinally-designed studies, secondary-grade students self-reported four aspects of their course-specific classroom engagement (behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic) throughout an 18-week semester, and these scores were used to predict their objectively-scored course achievement (Study 1) and end-of-semester gains in perceived academic progress and perceived autonomy-supportive teaching (Study 2). In both studies, multilevel regressions showed that agentic engagement explained independent variance in the outcomes, while emotional engagement (and cognitive engagement) did not. These findings highlight the need to add agentic engagement and to reconceptualize the role of emotional engagement, so the discussion offers a reconceptualized model with greater explanatory power than its 3-component (behavioral, emotional, cognitive) predecessor.     

A call to come together: why it matters and why it works

This letter to the editor is in response to Barbara Hotelling's column, "Tools for Teaching - The Power of Numbers: Transforming Birth Through Collaborations," published in the Volume 19, Number 2 (Spring 2010) issue of The Journal of Perinatal Education. Hotelling's brief overview of the history of birth activism in the United States and of current collaborations among diverse groups and individuals provides inspiration to continue efforts that improve maternity care and promote natural, safe, and healthy childbirth practices.     

社会阶层如何影响个体的亲社会行为?——机制与相关因素的探讨

社会阶层的社会认知理论与相关研究表明,低社会阶层者常比高社会阶层者更亲社会,而亲社会行为的资源和代价理论认为高阶层者更有能力和可能做出亲社会行为。随着实证研究的增多,研究者开始从多种因素(微观的个体水平变量,如人格因素;中观的情境水平变量,即具体的社会互动情境;宏观的社会与文化变量,如社会结构与文化因素)共同影响行为的视角入手来全面地理解社会阶层与亲社会行为之间的关系。研究发现,微观个体层面的互惠信念、感恩特质和相对剥夺感,中观情境层面的互动对方的利他水平、慈善呼吁类型和亲社会情境公开性,以及宏观社会层面的收入不平等性和文化等因素,都会影响社会阶层与亲社会行为之间的关系。未来研究应探讨亲社会情境、社会与文化层面的因素如何与个体的社会阶层交互影响其亲社会行为;考察受助者的社会阶层如何激发人们的亲社会行为,以及行动者的社会阶层对亲社会行为传递的影响。