How Should School Districts Shape Teacher Salary Schedules?

Linking School Performance to Pay Structure in Traditional Compensation Schemes Jason A. Grissom1

This study examines the relative distribution of salary schedule returns to experience for beginning and veteran teachers. The authors argue that districts are likely to benefit from structuring salary schedules with greater experience returns early in the teaching career. To test this hypothesis, the authors matched salary data to school-level student performance data on math and reading achievement tests across states.

The authors find that frontloaded compensation schemes—those that allocate greater salary returns to experience to novice teachers—are associated with better performance in multiple grades and throughout the achievement distribution.

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