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How and Why Has Teacher Quality Changed in Australia?
Author(s) -
Leigh Andrew,
Ryan Chris
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8462.2008.00487.x
Subject(s) - fell , aptitude , rank (graph theory) , percentile rank , teacher quality , quality (philosophy) , percentile , mathematics education , psychology , student achievement , demographic economics , academic achievement , economics , developmental psychology , statistics , mathematics , geography , operations management , metric (unit) , philosophy , cartography , epistemology , combinatorics
Abstract International research suggests that differences in teacher performance can explain a large portion of student achievement. Yet little is known about how the quality of the Australian teaching profession has changed over time. Using consistent data on the academic aptitude of new teachers, we compare those who have entered the teaching profession in Australia over the past two decades. We find that the aptitude of new teachers has fallen considerably. Between 1983 and 2003, the average percentile rank of those entering teacher education fell from 74 to 61, while the average rank of new teachers fell from 70 to 62. We find that two factors account for much of the decline: a fall in average teacher pay (relative to other occupations) and a rise in pay differentials in non‐teaching occupations.