Teacher Salary Differentials and Student Performance: Are They Connected?

Abstract

We examine the relationship between district level student achievement and teacher average salary in Ohio from academic year 2013-14 to academic year 2018-19. Utilizing panel data, the following district level characteristics were controlled for: average teacher experience, average teacher degree-level, student socioeconomic status, race, student attendance rate, pupil support expenditure per equivalent pupil and administration expenditure per equivalent pupil. Using a random effects regression our findings suggest that higher pay can impact student growth. When we partition our sample quintiles by poverty level, we find that teacher salary is only significant for the top quintiles. Our results suggest that for some districts (i.e., wealthy districts) teacher salaries’ impact on student performance is something that can be controlled, for other districts (i.e., poorer districts), teacher salary is another variable that shows no relationship to student performance.