Do higher salaries lead to better teachers?

New research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the UK explores the question of whether offering higher teacher salaries improves student achievement, and finds little evidence that it does.

Estimating the impact of teachers' pay on student achievement is difficult, as salaries tend to reflect the experience of the teacher, therefore making it difficult to separate the impact of teacher pay from teacher experience. 

However, the authors of this study have dealt with this problem by comparing student achievement in primary schools close to the London "fringe boundary" (on the outskirts of the city). Teachers inside this boundary receive a London weighting (a cost of living allowance) - around £1,000 extra each year. The researchers compared schools that were broadly comparable in student composition, but either side of the boundary.

The results showed little evidence that higher teacher salaries increase student achievement in English and math at the end of primary school. In fact, the difference in student achievement between schools on either side of the pay boundary is very close to zero for both English and math. 

The authors conclude that if individual schools offered salary differentials on this scale, they would not necessarily attract more effective teachers. They also argue that there is a remarkable lack of clear evidence about which combination of measures is likely to be most effective in attracting more high-quality teachers into the profession or in attracting the best teachers to particular schools. 

Johns Hopkins University 

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