Posted on 05/09/2014 8:06:42 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The average teacher salary in Michigan's top 10 highest paying districts for 2013 was over $81,000 per year. But there appears to be no correlation between higher paid educators and student outcomes.
The information comes from the latest Bulletin 1014, which was just made available from the Michigan Department of Education.
The most generous paying districts, in order, are Westwood Community School District*, Warren Consolidated Schools, Center Line Public Schools, Walled Lake Consolidated Schools, Harper Woods School District, Livonia Public School District, Allen Park Public Schools, Utica Community Schools, Grosse Pointe Public Schools and Saline Area Schools.
According to an analysis of the performance of school districts from the Center for Michigan, the results are all over the map for these districts. The Center for Michigan produces a database that ranks school districts based on state test scores while adjusting for family income.
Out of the 540 school districts and charter public schools rated, the rankings were as follows for the state’s highest paying schools:
Westwood: 514
Warren: 319
Center Line: 196
Walled Lake: 156
Harper Woods: 449
Livonia: 185
Allen Park: 461
Utica: 264
Grosse Pointe: 82
Saline: 49
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has a similar database which measures by individual schools rather than district-wide.
These results were not surprising to Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data & Research and a professor at the University of Washington-Bothell. He has evaluated studies looking at compensation and outcomes.
"[T]his is typical," Goldhaber said. "Research tends to find very little connection between salaries and student achievement, but part of this is because salaries are often measured as average salary, which can be driven either by actual differences in the salary schedule or teacher demographics (where they fall on the schedule). But, moreover, most salary schedules pay teachers based on degree and experience levels, and these are teacher credentials that are only weakly, at best, correlated with student achievement."
“educators”...Bah. “For the children”?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.