Opportunity Wages, Classroom Characteristics, and Teacher Mobility

This article analyzes the impact of classroom characteristics and opportunity wages on four possible labor market choices of teachers in Florida: remaining at their present school, switching schools within a school district, changing school districts, and leaving teaching. Discrete-time multinomial-logit-hazard model estimates indicate that classroom characteristics play a larger role than school average student characteristics in determining teacher mobility. Opportunity wages based on past teacher movements to other competing districts and professions are found to pull teachers away from their initial placements. Once opportunity wages and working conditions are considered, teachers’ own salaries are found to exert little impact on teacher mobility within the profession; although, they reduce attrition out of the profession. Policy simulations indicate that targeted salary increases based on teacher-specific working conditions are important to retain teachers at a given school.