Here's something that I would like to see. I wonder if anyone has done such a study?
I know that in some locations, teachers are paid a lot more than average. In rich suburbs of big cities, I believe this happens frequently. It would be interesting to compare shortages in such well-paid locations versus shortages in places where the pay is much lower.
DISCLAIMER: This isn't a scientific study, and could be misleading.
First, based on info from the URL that Jon posted: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/Students/repayment/teachers/tsa.html or http://makeashorterlink.com/?S57312EB3
Let's compare the numbers for Kansas and Missouri. For 2000 through 2002, Missouri shows 35 areas of shortage, and Kansas shows 6.
According to
http://www.nea.org/students/about/state.html
MO beginning teacher salary $27,173 and average salary at $36,715. For KS, the numbers are $26,010 and $35,901.
So at first blush, this suggests that there is no correlation between salaries and shortages, at least just looking at those 2 states.
As the husband of a public school teacher, this seems counterintuitive. Possible reasons might include discrepancies in the reporting that leads to the declaration of a shortage, and the fact that both the shortage areas and the average salaries are listed by state. Much of Kansas is rural, but Johnson County in Kansas is one of the richest counties in in the country. It's possible that there are no shortages in that district, and that the average salary in that district is much higher that the average salary for teachers in, say, Colby or Hutchinson. Averaging might tend to wipe out the level of detail we would need to know for sure whether or not there is a correlation between the two areas.
Reggie Bautista
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