BibTeX
@MISC{Fitzpatrick12(cornelluniversity),
author = {Maria D. Fitzpatrick and Michael F. Lovenheim},
title = {(Cornell University)},
year = {2012}
}
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Abstract
Given the prevalence of districts offering older teachers incentives to retire early in order to fill budget gaps and the rising average age of the teachers, the composition of teachers will change dramatically in coming years. However, there currently is no information on how these changes in the teacher workforce will affect student achievement. We use exogenous variation in teacher retirement behavior driven by an early retirement incentive program in Illinois in the mid-1990s to identify the effects of large-scale teacher retirements on student achievement. We find the program did not reduce test scores; likely, it increased them. The positive effects were most pronounced in low-SES and lower-performing schools. Our results suggest that districts may be able to lower costs without damaging student outcomes through early retirement programs.
Keyphrases
cornell university student achievement teacher incentive lower-performing school retirement behavior teacher workforce large-scale teacher retirement coming year early retirement program exogenous variation test score average age student outcome positive effect budget gap early retirement incentive program
