Teacher Tradeoffs - Aerj

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Teacher Tradeoffs: Disentangling Teachers Preferences for Working

Conditions and Student Demographics
Eileen Lai Horng
Am Educ Res J 2009; 46; 690 originally published online Jan 23, 2009;
DOI: 10.3102/0002831208329599
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http://aer.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/46/3/690
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American Educational Research Journal

September 2009, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 690717
DOI: 10.3102/0002831208329599
2009 AERA. http://aerj.aera.net
Teacher Tradeoffs: Disentangling Teachers

Preferences for Working Conditions and
Student Demographics
Eileen Lai Horng
Stanford University
One of the greatest differences in resources across schools in California comes
from an inequitable distribution of teachers. This study identifies reasons for
this sorting of teachers by surveying 531 teachers in a California elementary
school district. The surveys ask the teachers to make choices between various
workplace characteristics. With this information, the study disentangles student demographics from other characteristics of teaching jobs that are amenable to policy influences. It finds that teachers identify working
conditionsparticularly, school facilities, administrative support, and class
sizesand salaries as significantly more important than student characteristics when selecting a school in which to work.
Keywords: equity, teacher preferences, teacher retention
ne of the greatest differences in resources across schools in California

comes from an inequitable distribution of teachers. Poor, non-White,
and low-achieving students are far more likely to attend difficult-to-staff
schools, characterized by high rates of teacher attrition and limited teacher
applicant pools (Carey, 2004; Darling-Hammond, 2004; Education Trust
West, 2005; Esch et al., 2005). When teachers choose among teaching jobs,
they are at least in part expressing their preferences for different job conditions. Schools with less favorable conditions have greater difficulty recruiting
and retaining teachers and consequently have higher rates of teacher turnover. This study seeks to identify the characteristics of schools that teachers
favor in their choice of teaching jobs.
Eileen Lai Horng is a research associate at the Institute for Research on
Education Policy & Practice, Stanford University, 520 Galvez Mall, Stanford, CA
94305; e-mail: ehorng@stanford.edu. Her research focuses on the career paths of
teachers and principals, district policies that affect the distribution of human
resources across schools, and the impact of educator characteristics and mobility
patterns on student outcomes
Teacher Tradeoffs
Other studies have found that teachers tend to avoid schools serving
large concentrations of low-income, minority, and low-performing students
(see S. J. Carroll, Reichardt, Guarino, & Mejia, 2000; Hanushek, Kain, &
Rivkin. 2004; Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; Scafidi, Sjoquist, &
Stinebrickner, 2005). However, these studies are limited to analyses of
observed teacher mobility, so they are unable to determine if teachers are
moving from one school to another due to student characteristics or highly
correlated working conditions. For example, while Hanushek et al. (2004)
speculated that their observed teacher preferences for student ethnicity may
actually have been proxies for school working conditions, they admitted,
our analysis does not permit disentangling the various potential aspects of
working conditions (p. 351).
This study uses a conjoint analysis methodology to ask teachers to trade
off student demographics, salaries, and working conditions to begin to disentangle the influence each has on teachers decisions of where to teach. It suggests that due to the confluence of negative conditions at schools serving
low-income, minority, and low-achieving students, variation in teacher attrition across schools at least in part reflects teachers preferences for working
conditions and not solely students. Furthermore, this study suggests that some
working conditions are significantly more important to teachers than student
demographics and salary when they choose a school in which to work.
Background:Teacher Turnover and Preferences of Teachers

Across the United States, approximately half a million teachers leave
their schools each year. Only 16% of this teacher attrition at the school level
can be attributed to retirement. The remaining 84% of teacher turnover is
due to teachers transferring between schools and teachers leaving the profession entirely (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2008). Recent literature has
begun to investigate the complexities of teacher turnover, making important
distinctions such as teacher attrition versus migration, within-district versus
between-district transfers, and teachers leaving permanently versus those
leaving and later returning (see DeAngelis & Presley, 2007; S. M. Johnson,
Berg, & Donaldson, 2005). However, whether teachers are chronically leaving a school to transfer to another school or district, to leave teaching permanently or temporarily, or to retire, the effects on that individual school are
the same. The situation is further exacerbated when the school has difficulty
attracting teachers to fill the vacancies.
The labor economics theory of utility maximization provides a useful
framework for understanding and investigating the movement and distribution
of teachers across schools (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2004; Loeb &
Reininger, 2004; Stinebrickner, 2001). Utility maximization assumes that people
make decisions in order to maximize their utility or happiness. Different people have different opportunities and prefer different things, leading them to
make different choices, whether they can articulate those preferences or not.
Peoples opportunities and preferences are not static but rather change with
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time and by context. When teachers compare available teaching jobs, they
likely consider a range of factors including compensation, day-to-day job
tasks, colleagues, students, and expected feelings of accomplishment. In the
absence of perfect job options, their decisions are based upon tradeoffs. For
example, a teacher may choose a job with less appealing working conditions
if the salary is high or may choose a job with more appealing working conditions even if the salary is low. A core assumption of this theory is that people
act rationally and make decisions of where to work based upon their preferences for the different conditions available. If this assumption is not valid, then
understanding teachers preferences for different job characteristics will not
lead to a better understanding of the distribution (and policy implications for
the redistribution) of teachers among schools.
If the distribution of teachers is at least in part based upon their preferences, the relevant question is, what are teachers preferences that drive their
decisions of where to work? In other words, it is apparent that teachers are
avoiding working at some schools, but it is less clear what the particular
features of schools are that teachers are trying to avoid. Is it the characteristics of the students? Is it the working conditions in the school irrespective of
student characteristics? Both are likely to play a role in teachers decisions of
where to teach, as well as other factors such as salary and local community
characteristics.
Teachers may be reluctant to work with certain kinds of students, such
as low-income students, low-performing students, and students of color.
Hard-to-staff schools tend to have large concentrations of these students. As
an example, teacher transfer patterns demonstrate that when teachers move
from one school to another, they tend to move away from poor, minority,
and low-performing students. In California, S. J. Carroll et al. (2000) examined teacher attrition and retention patterns in approximately 70% of
California school districts between 1993 and 1997 and found that the odds
that a teacher would transfer out of a particular school were positively related
to the percentage of Black students, the percentage of Hispanic students,
and the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in the
school. Research conducted outside of California reach similar conclusions.
Hanushek et al. (2004) found that in Texas between 1993 and 1996, teachers
who transferred between schools systematically favored schools with higher
achieving, nonminority, and higher income students. Lankford et al. (2002)
found the same teacher transfer patterns in New York public schools between
1993 and 1998. Scafidi et al. (2005) found consistent results in Georgia
between 1991 and 2001, although in Georgia this pattern was primarily
driven by the proportion of minority students.
Teacher attrition patterns are clearly correlated with student characteristics; however, there is growing evidence that teachers may be avoiding
hard-to-staff schools because of working conditions that vary with studentbody characteristics, not solely because of the students themselves. Lowincome, non-White, and low-achieving students disproportionately attend
schools with less desirable working conditions such as poor facilities, fewer
692
Teacher Tradeoffs
resources and materials for students, lower teacher salaries, and fewer
opportunities for teachers to participate in school-wide decision making
(T. G. Carroll, Fulton, Abercrombie, & Yoon, 2004; Darling-Hammond, 2003;
Hirsch & Emerick, 2006; Ingersoll, Quinn, & Bobbitt, 1997; Oakes, 2002;
Schneider, 2004; Wyckoff, Boyd, Lankford, & Loeb, 2003).
Because school working conditions and student characteristics are so
highly correlated, teachers may be choosing to not work with low-income
students, low-performing students, and students of color because of the poor
working conditions at the schools which these students attend. Consequently,
the relationship between teacher turnover and student characteristics, at least
in part, may be a spurious one, driven by teachers preferences for favorable
working conditions rather than their aversions to teaching certain kinds of
students. Hanushek et al. (2004) hypothesized about the differential attrition
of teachers from non-White schools: If the results capture teacher preferences for student race or ethnicity, then districts possess few policy options.
But, we might speculate that these estimates at least partially proxy for more
general working conditions (p. 351). By avoiding unattractive working conditions, teachers may inadvertentlyrather than purposefullybe avoiding
low-income students, low-performing students, and students of color.
There is evidence that teachers care about school working conditions
and might be motivated to stay at a school that they would otherwise leave
(or select a school they would otherwise avoid) if the working conditions
were improved. Specifically, studies have found the following working conditions1 to be important to teachers and likely to impact the distribution of
teachers among schools:

Salary (see Imazeki, 2005; Kirby, Naftel, & Berends, 1999; Lankford et al.,
2002; Mont & Rees, 1996; Murnane, Singer, & Willett, 1989; Rickman &
Parker, 1990; Theobald & Gritz, 1996)
Class size (see Allen, 2005; Chambers & Fowler, 1995; Hanushek & Luque,
2000; Lankford et al., 2002; Mont & Rees, 1996)
Administrative support (see Allen, 2005; Darling-Hammond, 2002; Farkas,
Johnson, & Foleno, 2000; Hirsch & Emerick, 2006; Ingersoll, 2003; S. M.
Johnson & Birkeland, 2003; MetLife, 2001; Sclan, 1993)
School facilities (see Buckley, Schneider, & Shang, 2005; Darling-Hammond,
2002; Earthman, 2002; Hirsch & Emerick, 2006; Public Education Network,
2003)
Commute time (see Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations, 2000)
Input on school-wide decisions (see Allen, 2005; Chapman & Hutcheson,
1982; Hare & Heap, 2001; Hirsch & Emerick, 2006; Howard, 2003; Ingersoll,
2002; National Education Association, 2003; Sclan, 1993)
Resources for students (see Hirsch & Emerick, 2006; National Education
Association, 2003; Theobald & Gritz, 1996)
There is at least one study which suggests that teacher attrition is related to
student demographics as well as working conditions and salaries. Loeb,
Darling-Hammond, and Luczak (2005) linked California teacher survey data
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Horng
to district salary and staffing pattern data and found that teacher salaries and
working conditions are strong and significant predictors of teacher turnover.
Furthermore, in regression models, the estimated effect of student characteristics on teacher turnover is significantly reduced when district salary
levels and teachers ratings of working conditionsincluding class sizes,
facilities, and availability of textbooksare taken into account. According to
Darling-Hammond (2002),
The frequently observed flight of teachers from schools serving lowincome and minority students is at least in part a function of the
degree to which many of those schools also exhibit poor working
conditions rather than solely attributable to the characteristics of the
students or communities themselves. From a policy perspective this
is good news, since it points to remediable factorsi.e., the availability of materials, class sizes, high-quality leadership, and professional learning opportunitiesthat can be altered by policy to shape
the availability of teachers to all students. (p. 64)
Methods: Conjoint Analysis of Teachers Preferences

To explore these dynamics empirically, I utilize a conjoint analysis
methodology.2 Predominantly used for marketing research, this methodology asks respondents to make difficult tradeoffs to understand their relative
preferences. The basic assumption of this method is that the choices individuals make can be predicted by understanding how they make tradeoffs.
The individual may not be able to clearly articulate what he or she values
and why, but these values may be revealed by the choices the individual
makes among entities that have characteristics which vary in systematic ways
(Findikaki-Tsamourtzi & Dajani, 1981). Conjoint analysis allows inferences
to be made about respondents value systems by providing them with a set
of options to choose from and examining the tradeoffs they make.
When people are asked how important different characteristics are to
them using traditional surveys with a rating scale, they may rate all characteristics as, say, very important. But the reality of budget constraints and
limited resources means difficult tradeoffs need to be made and some factors
must become less important than others. Conjoint analysis has been used to
assess the relative influence of different job features in peoples decisionmaking processes (see Chonko & Griffin, 1983; Fischer, 1976; Ford, Huber,
& Gustafson, 1972; Kienast, MacLachlan, & McAlister, 1983; Ritchie &
Beardsley, 1978; Wittink, Krishnamurthi, & Nutter, 1982). However, I am
unaware of any other research that has utilized conjoint analysis to investigate the job choice preferences of teachers.
I asked teachers in the Crystal Springs School District3 to complete a
Web-based survey in which they reported their preferences for the following
10 workplace characteristics: salary, class size, administrative support, input
on school-wide decisions, commute time, resources for students, school facilities, student performance, student ethnicity, and student socioeconomic
694
Teacher Tradeoffs
status. The selection of these 10 characteristics as well as the specific levels
for these characteristics (such as $4,000 additional salary or 15 students in
your class) was determined after consultation with teachers, school and
district administrators, and researchers who are familiar with this field. The
characteristics were then refined with two pilot studiesfor example, the
range in salary levels was expanded (from $0$6,000 to $0$8,000) to
provide a more dramatic range for respondents to weigh against the other
characteristics.
The Crystal Springs School District is a large elementary school district
in Southern California. In 20032004, the district had 40 elementary schools
and over 1000 teachers, with over 90% holding full teaching credentials. The
district serves a diverse student population including more than 25,000 students. In 20032004, the student population was 64.3% Latino or Hispanic,
17.0% White (not Hispanic), 8.5% Filipino, 4.9% African American, 3.6%
Asian, 0.9% Pacific Islander, and 0.4% American Indian or Alaskan Native.
Additionally, about half of the students in the district were eligible for free
or reduced-price lunch, and more than one third of the students were English
language learners.
During the 20032004 academic year, I contacted each of the 40 principals in the district, 37 of whom agreed to have teachers in their school participate. Ultimately, 1,018 teachers in these 37 schools were invited to
complete the Web-based, conjoint analysis survey. Of these 1,018 teachers,
547 responded, representing a 53.7% response rate. This sample represents
49.3% of all the full-time classroom teachers in the district. Incomplete surveys, surveys completed by uncertified teachers, surveys with inconsistent
patterns, and surveys completed in under 8 minutes were removed.
Ultimately, results from 531 surveys were used for the analyses. The sample
of teachers underrepresents beginning teachers (i.e., teachers in their first 2
years of teaching) but is otherwise representative of teachers in the district
in terms of demographics. For example, 83.4% of the sample is female compared to 83.6% of the population, and 24.1% of the sample is Latino or
Hispanic compared to 25.8% of the population.
I used this adaptive conjoint analysis survey to examine the tradeoffs
teachers would make among the 10 workplace characteristics. The premise
of conjoint analysis is that it is possible to make inferences about individuals
value systems by examining their hypothetical choices among a set of options
(Green & Srinivasan, 1990).
Conjoint analysis differs from the two traditional methods for estimating
teachers preferences for teaching conditions. The first asks people about
their preferences through surveys. Generally, these surveys use a compositional approach in which respondents rate each characteristic separately.
For example, a teacher might be given a list of teaching job characteristics
and asked to indicate how important each is using a Likert-type scale.
Conjoint analysis, on the other hand, uses a decompositional approach in
which respondents are asked to judge sets of characteristics (i.e., profiles).
The respondents preferences for these profiles are then analyzed to estimate
695
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how important each of the individual workplace characteristics is to them.
As a simplified example, a teacher may be presented with Job A (high salary
and unsafe facilities) and Job B (low salary and safe facilities) and asked to
rate which she would prefer and to what degree. If the teacher responds that
she prefers Job A much more than Job B, one can infer that salary is more
important to this teacher than school facilities. Rather than asking teachers
to state how important salary is to them, the importance of salary is derived
by analyzing teachers preferences for different work profiles. As teachers
are presented with varying profiles, more nuanced estimations of importance can be made. This decompositional approach has been demonstrated
to be more reliable and accurate than a compositional approach (Green &
Wind, 1981; R. B. Johnson, 1995).
The second traditional method uses data on employees (in this case
teachers) transfer and quit behaviors to estimate preferences for job characteristics. The studies of teacher turnover in California, Texas, New York, and
Georgia described above are examples of these. As discussed previously,
these studies are limited in that they are unable to disentangle the effects of
different school characteristics that are highly correlated in actual schools
(such as working conditions and student demographics). Additionally, these
studies have substantial data requirementsneeding to follow teachers for
many years and needing adequate measures of school characteristics. In fact,
researchers rarely have access to this data, and, as examples, these studies
have very little information about schools other than their student composition. Conjoint analysis simulates choices instead of observing choices and
thus can assess the importance of a range of job characteristics. Additionally,
because this method asks teachers to trade off hypothetical teaching jobs
rather than actual ones, confounding external factors such as district budget
cuts, changes in wages of nonteaching jobs in the local labor market, and
varying local teacher union bargaining power are removed. Teachers are
asked to compare hypothetical job profiles, assuming all else is equal.
I use adaptive conjoint analysis. The term adaptive refers to the fact that
it uses an Internet-based survey that is customized for each respondent. The
survey reacts to the teachers prior responses and adjusts subsequent questions to challenge the teacher to make more difficult trade offs. This maximizes the information gathered and minimizes the survey length (Green,
Krieger, & Agarwal, 1991; Huber, Wittink, Fiedler, & Miller, 1993; Sawtooth
Software, n.d.).
Results:The Importance of Different Workplace Characteristics

The analysis of the survey data is divided into three stages. First, characteristic level utility values and characteristic importance scores are calculated for each respondent and averaged across the sample of respondents.
Second, respondent subgroups are compared. Finally, the teachers preferences for hypothetical job profiles are predicted by calculating the overall
utility of different job profiles.
696
Teacher Tradeoffs
Salary
Class
Size
Administrative
Support
Input on
Decisions
Commute
Time
Student
Facilities
Resources
Student
API
Student
Ethnicity
Student
SES
100.00
80.00
69.50
59.57
Average Utility Valuess
60.00
48.71
41.23
40.00
48.62
36.92
50.52
32.89
20.00
7.63
6.70
6.25
14.82
12.34
3.53
0.00
2.73
11.99
20.00
40.00
60.00
80.00
18.68
8.46
5.47
12.09
13.21
43.17
50.52
55.42
67.21
60.96
69.50
74.12
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Attribute Levels
Figure 1. Average utility values for each level of the workplace characteristic
variables.
Average Utility Values and Importance Scores

of Workplace Characteristics
Utility values represent the desirability of the characteristic levels
(i.e., their relative worth) and are computed with the Sawtooth Software
Adaptive Conjoint Analysis program using ordinary least squares regression.
The average utility values reported in Figure 1 demonstrate the teachers
preferences for the workplace characteristic levels in this study. Conjoint
utility values are interval data because they are scaled to an arbitrary additive
constant within each characteristic. Therefore, the utility values of levels
between characteristics (e.g., $4,000 additional salary vs. 20 students in your
class) cannot be directly compared. However, the utility values of levels
within a characteristic can be compared. For example, $0 additional salary
has an average utility value of 55.42, while $4,000 additional salary has an
average utility value of +6.70 and $8,000 additional salary per year has an
average utility value of +48.71indicating that, on average, respondents
prefer higher salaries to lower ones.
Importance scores, on the other hand, can be compared across characteristics. Importance scores characterize the relative importance of each
697
Horng
Figure 2. Average importance scores for the workplace characteristic variables.
characteristic (i.e., how much influence the characteristic has on the respondents
choices compared to the other characteristics). Importance scores are calculated by calculating the range in the characteristics utility values (i.e., subtracting the utility of the least-preferred level from the utility of the most-preferred
level) and adjusting those ranges so that the sum of the 10 characteristic importance scores is 100. The following equations demonstrate how importance
scores are calculated if only three characteristics are considered.
I1 = (U1 / U1+U2+U3) 100%
I2 = (U2 / U1+U2+U3) 100%
I3 = (U3 / U1+U2+U3) 100%
where I1 through I3 are importance scores for three characteristics of a
teaching job and U1 through U3 are the utility value ranges of three characteristics (i.e., highest utility value minus lowest utility value for each
characteristic).
The average importance scores reported in Figure 2 demonstrate the
respondents preferences for the workplace characteristics.4 Since the importance scores of the 10 characteristics totals 100, if the characteristics were
equally preferred by the respondents, the importance score of each characteristic would be 10. Upon examination of the importance scores, it is evident that the 10 characteristics are not equally preferred. Further, two-tailed,
paired-samples t tests comparing each characteristic importance with every
other characteristic importance (see Table 1) reveal that every characteristic
importance is significantly different from every other characteristic importance at the .05 level, with the exception of two pairs: administrative support
and class size and student performance and student socioeconomic status.
698
699
Administrative
Support
Class
Size
Commute
Time
Salary
Resources
for Students
Input on
Decisions
2.43*
Student
Student
SES
Performance
3.91**
3.91**
0.16
8.52**
3.84**
3.98**
10.70**
6.30**
6.58**
3.22**
16.75**
10.88**
9.79**
6.10**
2.61**
19.50**
17.11**
13.95**
11.18**
6.68**
5.41**
26.40**
23.70**
22.60**
19.80**
15.00**
14.94**
9.55**
28.02**
23.30**
23.92**
18.95**
15.27**
15.61**
9.31**
0.17
29.72**
27.24**
24.80**
22.28**
17.23**
17.87**
12.56**
3.21**
Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

*p < .05. **p < .01.
Administrative support
Class size
Commute time
Salary
Resources for students
Input on decisions
Student SES
Student performance
Student ethnicity

Facilities
Table 1
t Values of Two-Tailed, Pairwise t Tests for Importance Scores of Workplace Characteristics Variables
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Table 2
Sample Sizes and Degrees of Freedom for Respondent Subgroups
Variable
Subgroups
Sample Size
Age
Under 30 years old
135

3140 years old
163

4150 years old
113

Over 50 years old
120
Gender
Female
443

Male 88
Ethnicity
Caucasian
302

Latino/a or Hispanic
128

Other 86
Number of children
None
319

One or more
212
Education
Bachelors
190

MA/PhD/EdD
303
First generation to college
Yes
268

No
263
SES growing up
Low/low-middle income
202

Middle income
256

Middle-high/high income 73
Number of students
20 or less
321

More than 20
210
Teaching experience
15 years
175

610 years
162

More than 10 years
194
Satisfaction
Not/not-somewhat/
131
somewhat satisfied

Somewhat-very satisfied
172

Very satisfied
228
df
3, 527
1, 529
2, 513
1, 529
1, 491
1, 529
2, 528
1, 529
2, 528
2, 528
Comparing Subgroups of Teachers

The survey included 10 respondent background questions by which
teachers are sorted into subgroups: gender, ethnicity, age, education, socioeconomic status growing up, whether part of the first generation in their
family to go to college, number of children under 18, years of teaching
experience, number of students, and satisfaction with current teaching
assignment. Table 2 demonstrates the respondent subgroups and sample
size of each.5
Initially, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed for each
combination of respondent background variable and workplace characteristic. Table 3 displays the F ratios of the one-way ANOVAs. Given that this
analysis involves 100 bivariate comparisons that are not strictly independent,
a conservative level of significance (p < .01) is used. Each cell of Table 3 that
is significant at a p value of .01 is investigated further with Tukey HSD post
700
701
5.60** 24.92**
3.08*
0.25
4.57**
6.38*
0.40
1.59
4.33**
3.74
0.23
1.77
0.48
0.00
2.50
5.53*
4.55**
0.42
2.20
8.05**

*p < .05. **p < .01.
Facilities
Administrative support
Class size
Commute time
Salary
Resources for students
Input on decisions
Student SES
Student performance
Student ethnicity
2.57
2.77
3.44*
4.90**
0.42
3.46*
0.18
0.56
0.04
11.22**
0.84
3.90*
0.01
1.15
0.49
0.01
0.24
0.37
0.01
1.11
3.83
0.07
0.12
0.17
15.13**
2.60
11.60**
0.10
1.24
0.09

Number

of

Age Gender Ethnicity Children Education
0.00
0.03
0.83
0.96
1.78
3.97*
0.41
0.64
0.09
2.98
1.90
2.45
0.21
3.70*
0.54
1.01
1.52
0.72
0.53
1.55
1.93
6.56*
37.64**
0.44
2.85
4.19*
0.56
0.96
0.85
3.11
2.48
4.05*
3.27*
0.50
8.49**
0.14
2.44
2.20
7.56**
2.86
3.89*
1.57
0.17
1.09
9.97**
1.22
3.42*
0.87
0.53
2.30
First
SES
Number
Generation Growing
of
Teaching
to College
Up
Students Experience Satisfaction
Table 3
F Ratios for One-Way ANOVAs for Each Combination of Respondent Background Variable and Workplace Characteristic
Horng
hoc tests to determine specifically which respondent subgroups differ significantly from others and in which direction.
The statistically significant differences in workplace characteristic average importance scores between respondent subgroups are as follows. Class
size is significantly more important to teachers 41 to 50 years old and those
over 50 years old (compared to teachers 30 or under), female teachers (compared to male teachers), and teachers who currently have 20 or less students
(compared to those with more than 20 students). Salary is significantly more
important to teachers 30 years old or younger (compared to those 41 to 50
and those over 50), teachers with only a Bachelors degree (compared to
teachers with a higher education degree), teachers in their first 5 years of
teaching (compared to those with 6 to 10 years of experience and those who
have taught more than 10 years), and teachers who are not very satisfied
with their current teaching assignment (compared to those who are very
satisfied). Clean and safe school facilities are significantly more important
to female teachers (compared to male teachers) and teachers over the age
of 50 (compared to those 30 or under and those 41 to 50). Being able to
frequently provide input on school-wide decision making is significantly
more important to teachers with a masters, PhD, and/or EdD degree (compared to teachers without a higher education degree). Commute time is
significantly more important to Caucasian teachers (compared to Latino/a or
Hispanic teachers). Student performance is significantly more important to
teachers age 41 to 50 and those over 50 (compared to teachers 30 or under)
and teachers with more than 10 years of experience (compared to teachers
with 5 or less years of experience and teachers who have taught between
6 and 10 years). Finally, student ethnicity is significantly more important to
male teachers (compared to female teachers).
Next, 10-way ANOVAs are conducted to examine the differences in
workplace characteristic importance scores by teacher subgroups, after
accounting for the other 9 respondent background variables. For example,
males and females are compared in their average facilities importance scores,
controlling for the other 9 respondent background variables. While this 10-way
ANOVA model for school facilities is significant overall, only 11.7% (8.7%
adjusted) of the variance of the facilities importance score can be accounted
for by the combination of the 10 respondent background variables. Similarly,
the models for administrative support, class size, salary, input on school-wide
decisions, and student ethnicity are significant, but the proportion of the variance in each of the characteristics importance scores that can be accounted
for by the combination of the 10 respondent background variables is minimal
(ranging from 6.2% to 10.6%). The models for the remaining workplace
characteristics (commute time, resources for students, student socioeconomic
status, and student performance) are not significant.
Finally, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is performed to
generate a model which includes 9 of the workplace characteristics as criterion variables and all 10 respondent background variables as predictor
variables.6 Table 4 demonstrates the results of the multivariate model, by
702
Teacher Tradeoffs
Table 4
Results of MANOVA by Predictor Variable and by Criterion Variable

Predictor Variable
Wilkss
Lambda
F
Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Number of children
Education
First generation to college
SES growing up
Number of student
Teaching experience
Satisfaction
0.92
0.94
0.94
0.98
0.95
0.99
0.96
0.93
0.96
0.91
1.34
3.44**
1.66*
0.98
2.68**
0.48
1.04
3.81**
1.05
2.32**
Hypothesis Error
Partial
df
df Significance
2
27
9
18
9
9
9
18
9
18
18
1329
455
910
455
455
455
910
455
910
910
.117
.000
.041
.454
.005
.887
.416
.000
.401
.001
0.03
0.06
0.03
0.02
0.05
0.01
0.02
0.07
0.02
0.04

*p < .05. **p < .01.
Criterion
Variable
Sum of
Adjusted Mean
Partial
Squares R2
R2
df Square
F
Significance
2
Facilities
986.13 .117
.087
16 61.63 3.85**
.000
Administrative
671.56 .073
.041
16 41.97 2.29**
.003
support
Class size
1057.75 .106
.075
16 66.11 3.43**
.000
Commute time
357.12 .041
.008
16 22.32 1.25
.227
Salary
1128.33 .102
.071
16 70.52 3.27**
.000
Resources
241.49 .042
.009
16 15.09 1.26
.219
Student SES
256.13 .040
.007
16 16.01 1.22
.247
Student
291.17 .041
.008
16 18.20 1.25
.225
performance
Student ethnicity 502.92 .082
.050
16 31.43 2.59**
.001
0.12
0.07
0.11
0.04
0.10
0.04
0.04
0.04
0.08

*p < .05. **p < .01.
predictor variable (i.e., respondent background) and by criterion variable

(i.e., workplace characteristic). With the use of Wilkss Lambda criterion,
statistically significant differences are found among the respondent subgroups of gender, ethnicity, education, number of students, and satisfaction
with current teaching assignment on the combined workplace characteristics. However, the strength of relationship between each of the predictor
variables and the combined criterion variables is moderate, with the partial
effect size index, 2, of each ranging from .01 to .07. No statistically significant differences are found among the subgroups of the other predictor variables (age, socioeconomic status when growing up, whether part of the first
generation in their family to go to college, number of children under 18, and
years of teaching experience). Table 4 also demonstrates the results of the
multivariate model by criterion variable. The model is significant for facilities,
703
Horng
administrative support, class size, salary, and student ethnicity importance
scores. The partial 2 of each is moderate to strong (ranging from 0.04 to
0.12), indicating an average association between the set of 10 respondent
background variables and each of these workplace characteristics. No statistically significant main effect is found for the other four criterion variables in
the model (commute time, resources for students, student performance, and
student socioeconomic status).
Models of Teachers Preferences
Since the utility values are computed using ordinary least squares regression, they can be interpreted as regression betas. The respondents rating for
a job profile is the dependent variable, and the workplace characteristics are
the independent variables. The overall utility of a given job profile for a
respondent is the sum of the utility values of the specific characteristic levels.
To calculate the average overall utility for a specific job profile for all the
respondents, the overall utility (i.e., sum of the characteristic level utility
values) is calculated for each respondent and averaged across all respondents. The overall utilities of hypothetical job profiles are used to predict the
teachers preferences and sorting patterns if they had these profiles as
choices. The model of a job profile overall utility for a respondent can be
represented with the following equation. Note that one level is dropped for
each attribute because of the linear dependency of attribute levels (because
the sum of their utility values is 0).

Y=b
1($4,000) + b2($8,000) + b3(20 students) + b4(15 students)
+ b5 (average admin. support) + b6(very good admin. support)
+ b7(occasional input) + b8(frequent input)
+ b9(30-minute commute) + b10(5-minute commute)
+ b11(enough resources) + b12(clean and safe facilities)
+ b13(API 5) + b14(API 8) + b15(50% Latino/AA)
+ b16(95% Latino/AA) + b17(middle-income students)
+ b18(low-income students) + constant + error
where Y is the respondents preference for a job profile (i.e., overall utility)
and b1 through b18 are utility values for the characteristic levels.
An overall utility value, therefore, is a numeric value that reflects the
judgments, impressions, or evaluations that teachers form of job profiles
when they take all given workplace characteristic information into account.
The greater the overall utility, the more preferred the job is to the sample of
teachers, on average. There are hundreds of possible combinations of characteristics to create hypothetical job profiles. One example is a job where a
teacher would have 20 students, average administrative support, occasional
input in school-wide decision making, enough resources for students, a
30-minute commute from home, clean and safe facilities, and an additional
$4,000 in annual salary in a school where the student population is 95%
704
Teacher Tradeoffs
Latino or African American, mostly low income, and the academic achievement
is represented by an API rank of 2. This job profile would have an average
overall utility of +164.65 for the sample of teachers, which is only meaningful when compared to another job profile. For example, a job with identical
working conditions but at a school with a different student population50%
Latino or African American, mostly middle income, and academic achievement represented by an API rank of 8has an average overall utility of
+227.79, indicating that this job is more attractive to the teachers, on average,
than the previous hypothetical job. The implications of teachers preferences
for different hypothetical job profiles will be considered later.
Limitations of the Study
The advantage of asking teachers to trade off hypothetical job profiles
is that teachers preferences across a range of options can be observed rather
than being limited by the jobs that actually exist. However, it is necessary to
note that there are also some important limitations to this study.
First, the theoretical framework underlying this study assumes that
teachers act as rational decision makers interested in maximizing their utility
when choosing a teaching job. Inasmuch as the frameworks assumptions
are not valid, the ensuing conclusions may not be as well.
Second, the model developed by this study is hypothetical in nature. It
is used to predict how teachers would choose between different job profiles.
In actuality, teachers may make different choices. Since teachers are currently not being offered the choices proposed in this study, there is not a
way to test the goodness of fit of the model with actual data.
Third, the teachers self-reports may be unreliable. For example, a respondent may not have been willing to report that he or she would rather not teach
minority students, if given the choice.7 Additionally, different respondents may
have interpreted the terminology of the survey differentlyfor example, administrative support is likely to mean different things to different teachers.
Fourth, the sample of teachers was limited to one district of convenience due to the challenge of acquiring district and school permissions to
contact individual teachers and invite them to complete the survey. The
relatively small sample size may pose degrees of freedom problemsconsequently conservative levels of significance are used for analyses.
Additionally, these teachers likely made assumptions based upon their experiences in this district which may have influenced their responses. For example, this district is very close to the U.S.Mexico border. Therefore, these
teachers are familiar with large concentrations of Latino/a and Hispanic students. When the survey asked these teachers to consider a school where
95% of the students are African American or Latino, they most likely envisioned schools where most of the students are Latino rather than African
American. Teachers from other school districts may respond differently to
the survey based upon their unique experiences and assumptions. Another
705
Horng
major limitation is this is an elementary school district. The implications of
this studys findings can only be generalized to a larger population to the
extent that the preferences of the teachers in this one elementary school
district are representative of the preferences of teachers in other districts. The
following discussion assumes that teachers throughout California have similar preferences for workplace conditions as the teachers surveyed in this
study which may not be the case.
Discussion: New Insights Into Teacher Preferences

Having Clean and Safe Facilities, Very Good Administrative Support,
and Small Class Sizes Are Very Important to Teachers
At the individual teacher level, there are a myriad of unmeasurable factors
which may persuade a teacher to select one school over another. At the aggregate level, however, teachers are more likely to choose a school and less likely
to leave if teaching conditions are favorable (Loeb & Reininger, 2004). An
examination of the average characteristic level utility values (see Figure 1)
reveals what teachers in this study, on average, consider to be favorable teaching conditions. Respondents, on average, prefer higher salaries to lower ones,
smaller class sizes to larger ones, very good administrative support to poor
support, frequently giving input on school-wide decisions to rarely giving
input, shorter commute times to longer ones, having enough resources for
students to not having enough, facilities that are clean and safe to ones that
are not, and higher performing students to lower performing ones. Additionally,
on average, teachers in this study prefer schools where half of the students are
Latino or African American and where most of the students are from middleincome families. Overall, the sample of teachers slightly prefers high-minority
schools (where 95% of the students are Latino or African American) to lowminority ones (where only 5% of the students are Latino or African American)
and high-poverty schools (where most of the students are from low-income
families) to low-poverty ones (where most of the students are from high-income families). This suggests that teachers may not have an aversion to teaching low-income or minority students, as hypothesized by researchers who
have examined teacher transfer patterns. Other factors, such as working conditions, may be driving teachers preferences for schools instead.
The average importance scores (see Figure 2) reveal the preferences the
respondents have for the 10 workplace characteristics in this study. The average
importance scores suggest that some working conditions may strongly influence teachers decisions of where to teach. Of the 10 characteristics, school
facilities, administrative support, and class size are the 3 most important to the
sample of teachers. Importance scores are ratio data, so a characteristic with an
importance score of 20 is twice as important as one with an importance score
of 10. These data suggest that, on average, school facilities are more than twice
as important as each of the 3 student demographic variables when teachers
select among schools. Similarly, administrative support and class size are almost
twice as important as each of the student-body characteristics.8
706
Teacher Tradeoffs
The t tests comparing the characteristic importance scores (see Table 1)
indicate that having clean and safe school facilities (vs. not clean and safe
ones) is statistically significantly more important to the sample of teachers than
each of the other workplace characteristics included in this study. Additionally,
each of the working condition characteristicsspecifically, clean and safe
facilities (vs. not), very good administrative support (vs. poor), class size of 15
students (vs. 33), one-way commute time of 5 minutes (vs. 60 minutes),
enough textbooks, materials, and technology (vs. not enough), and frequent
input on school-wide decisions (vs. rare)is statistically significantly more
important to the respondents, on average, than each of the student demographic variables. This further suggests that teachers decisions of where to
teach are more likely to be driven by their preferences for favorable working
conditions than by their reluctance to teach certain kinds of students.
Salary Is Not as Important to Teachers as Working Conditions
But More Important Than Student-Body Characteristics
Salary is ranked fifth of the 10 workplace characteristics by average
importance score (see Figure 2). Salary is, on average, significantly less important than some working conditions (see Table 1). On average, the difference
between $0 versus $8,000 in additional annual salary is not as important to
these teachers as the differences between clean and safe versus not clean and
safe facilities, very good versus poor administrative support, 15 versus 33
students in a class, and a one-way commute time of 5 versus 60 minutes.
The findings also suggest that, on average, school facilities are 30% more
important than salary (see Figure 2). Since importance scores depend on the
specific characteristic levels chosen, more accurately, the difference between
facilities that are clean and safe versus facilities that are not clean and safe is, on
average, 30% more important to the respondents than the difference between $0
additional salary per year versus an $8,000 increase in annual pay. Another way
to interpret this finding is that if the teachers sampled had to choose between
working at a school that was clean and safe or to receive an $8,000 annual salary
increase, on average, they would choose the former over the latter.
However, the results also reveal that receiving an additional $8,000 in
salary annually is significantly more important to the teachers than student
ethnicity, performance, or socioeconomic status (with the defined ranges).
This suggests that teacher transfer patterns among schools with different
student demographics may be altered with financial incentives such as
increased annual payhowever, these incentives may not be as effective as
improving school working conditions.
Working Conditions Are More Powerful Determinants of Where Teachers
Choose to Work Than Student Demographics
This study provides evidence to support the hypothesis that student characteristics serve as proxies for working conditions when teachers choose a
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Horng
Utility (Value of School Profile to Teachers)
100.00
80.00
76.09
60.00
School B
40.00
5% African
American or
Latino; mostly
middle-income
61.30
School C
Students:
Students:
95% African
American or
Latino; mostly
low-income
Facilities:
20.00
clean and safe
Facilities:
clean and safe
0.00
School A
20.00
40.00
Students:
95% African
American or
Latino; mostly
low-income
Facilities:
60.00
80.00
NOT clean and

safe
School D
Students:
5% African
American or
Latino; mostly
middle-income
Facilities:
NOT clean
and safe
62.91
77.70
100.00
Figure 3. Overall utilities of four hypothetical job profiles.
school. As previously described, studies conducted by S. J. Carroll et al. (2000),

Lankford et al. (2002), Hanushek et al. (2004), and Scafidi et al. (2005) have
found that teacher transfer patterns are highly correlated with student characteristics, with teachers tending to move away from poor, low-performing, and
minority students. While previous studies have been unable to disentangle
student characteristics and working conditions to determine if the characteristics of students themselves directly affected teachers decisions to migrate or
served as proxies for working conditions in the schools, this study is able to
disconnect the two by asking teachers to make hypothetical tradeoffs.
The results suggest that the observed teacher transfer patterns are more
likely the consequence of teachers avoiding undesirable school environments
rather than particular groups of students. In other words, working conditions, not student-body characteristics, are more powerful determinants of
where teachers choose to work. Figure 3 displays the overall utilities of four
hypothetical job profiles. Teachers responses to these hypothetical jobs
suggest quite a lot about their decision making and, therefore, about the
distribution of teachers across schools.
The model represented in Figure 3 predicts the respondents preferences
if they are presented with four different hypothetical job profiles. Since student
characteristics and school facility quality are highly correlated, many currently
existing teaching jobs fit Profiles A or B:
708
Teacher Tradeoffs

Profile A: most of the students are low income, 95% of the students are
African American or Latino, and facilities are not clean and safe.
Profile B: most of the students are middle income, 5% of the students are
African American or Latino, and facilities are clean and safe.
If only these two jobs are compared, this study predicts that the
teachers would greatly prefer Profile B (with an overall utility of +76.09) to
Profile A (with an overall utility of 77.70). This would account for the
teacher transfer patterns that other researchers have observednamely,
when teachers transfer from one school to another, they tend to move away
from schools serving large concentrations of low-income students of color
to ones which do not (in this case, from A to B). One might then presume
that some schools are hard to staff because teachers do not want to teach
poor and minority students.
Importantly, the data from this study allow insights into the desirability
for jobs that do not currently exist in numbers as large as Profiles A and B,
such as Profiles C and D:

Profile C: most of the students are low income, 95% of the students are
African American or Latino, and facilities are clean and safe.
Profile D: most of the students are middle income, 5% of the students are
African American or Latino, and the facilities are not clean and safe.
The overall utilities of Profile C (+61.30) and Profile D (62.91) indicate

that good school facilities are a much more powerful incentive for teaching
in a school than the demographic composition of the students who attend
the school. Therefore, previously documented teacher mobility patterns are
more likely due to teachers moving away from poor working conditions,
such as unclean and unsafe facilities, than to teachers moving away from
low-income and non-White students.
Different Kinds of Teachers Have Slightly Different Preferences for
Workplace Characteristics, but Generally Teachers Preferences
Are More Similar Than They Are Different
Respondent subgroup comparison analyses indicate that different subgroups of teachers have slightly different preferences for the workplace characteristics in this study. For example, Figure 4 displays the average importance
scores disaggregated by gender for each of the characteristics and suggests
that clean and safe facilities may be more important to female teachers than
male teachers. While there are some statistically significant differences in preferences among different subgroups of teachers, the 10 teacher background
variables account for very little (ranging from 6.2% to 11.7%) of the variance
of each of the characteristic importance scores, indicating that teachers in these
subgroups are more similar than they are different. In other words, teachers
background and experience do not have a significant impact on which aspects
of their teaching environment they believe to be the most important to them
709
Horng
10.01
10.57
10.63
11.73
11.92
12.00
Female
Male
11.83
11.21
10.00
5.76
6.93
8.00
6.47
6.75
6.39
7.39
8.80
8.80
Average Importance Score
14.00
13.01
11.66
12.79
13.05
14.31
16.00
6.00
4.00
2.00
ty
ci
PI
th
ni
-A
en
tE
ce
ud
en
ud
St
ho
Sc
n
In
pu
to
an
fo
r
tP
er
-W
ol
rc
ou
es
St
ud
St
ec
D
e
id
en
is
tS
io
en
ud
St
fo
r
es
ES
ns
ts
y
tio
di
Ad
m
om
C
na
ut
lS
Ti
al
ar
ze
Si
ss
la
C
Ad
in
is
Sc
tra
ho
ol
tiv
e
Su
Fa
c
ilit
pp
ie
or
0.00
Attributes
Figure 4. Average importance scores of the workplace characteristic variables

for the gender respondent subgroups (i.e., male vs. female teachers).
when deciding where to work. Generally, the three most important workplace
characteristics to all subgroups of teachers in this study are school facilities,
administrative support, and class size.
Latino Teachers Favor Teaching Low-Income Students, Students of Color, and
Low-Performing Students More Than Other Teachers
While the preferences of different subgroups of teachers for the workplace characteristics in this study do not vary much, their preferences for
levels within the characteristics do suggest some noteworthy differences. Of
particular interest are the preferences of subgroups of teachers for different
student-body characteristics. As described previously, hard-to-staff schools
tend to have large concentrations of low-income students, students of color,
and low-performing students. In order to find teachers who are willing to
remain for the long term at these schools, school districts could target their
recruitment efforts on those teachers who prefer to teach these students
compared to other teachers, regardless of the salary and working conditions.
The results of this study indicate that different subgroups of teachers value
student demographic characteristic levels differently. Table 5 presents the
710
711
12.33
11.92
16.34
6.72
4.06
1.53
12.22
16.10
19.56
7.76
14.06
9.20
14.83
8.99
13.46
15.12
6.25
9.99
18.84
11.75
12.35
Male
Female
Caucasian
Latino
Other ethnicities
Under 30 years old
3140 years old
4150 years old
Over 50 years old
With only BA
MA/PhD/EdD
First generation college
Not first generation
Low/low-middle incomea
Middle income
Middle-high/high income
15 years experience
610 years experience
More than 10 years
No children
One or more children
1.97
3.84
3.02
5.09
2.38
2.64
2.90
6.53
2.55
4.24
2.85
3.86
3.19
3.77
3.73
2.17
2.48
4.81
3.41
4.19
2.53
API 5
10.37
8.08
13.32
1.63
1.69
1.11
9.32
9.57
17.00
3.52
11.21
5.33
11.64
5.22
9.74
12.95
3.77
5.18
15.42
7.55
9.82
API 8
18.53
10.81
3.55
33.24
12.05
20.53
12.00
7.14
7.38
12.77
10.55
16.03
8.07
18.75
7.45
9.92
17.19
14.10
5.81
12.95
10.80
5% SOC
16.16
14.56
12.66
19.37
18.03
17.42
14.11
14.61
13.07
15.07
14.81
15.80
13.82
16.89
13.24
14.64
16.28
13.48
14.63
14.97
14.59
50% SOC
2.37
3.75
9.11
13.86
5.98
3.11
2.11
7.47
5.69
2.31
4.26
0.23
5.75
1.86
5.79
4.72
0.91
0.62
8.82
2.03
3.79
95% SOC
Student Ethnicity
2.82
7.12
10.90
5.68
3.81
1.24
2.88
10.66
11.66
3.07
7.28
3.28
7.70
2.28
7.20
8.22
1.74
3.39
13.72
5.56
5.33
Low Income
17.13
18.99
20.50
15.01
19.23
17.89
16.43
19.91
21.46
18.88
18.73
17.91
19.46
16.97
20.61
16.61
16.37
16.47
22.61
19.57
17.33
Middle Income
Student SES
Note. SES = socioeconomic status; SOC = students of colorin this study those are Latino and African American students.
The socioeconomic status subgroups refer to how the respondent describes his or her familys income level when growing up.
API 2
Student Performance
Subgroup of Teachers
Table 5
Average Utility Values for Each Level of the Student Demographic Variables by Respondent Subgroup
19.94
11.87
9.60
20.70
15.43
19.13
13.55
9.25
9.81
15.81
11.45
14.63
11.76
14.69
13.41
8.39
18.12
13.08
8.89
14.01
12.00
High Income
Horng
average utility values for the student demographic characteristic levels by
respondent subgroup. Number of students and satisfaction with current
teaching assignment are not included, because these are not characteristics
of teachers that schools or school districts can use to target their recruitment
efforts. All subgroups of teachers in this study, on average, prefer teaching
at schools where 50% of the students are Latino or African American and
most of the students are middle income. Most of the subgroups prefer teaching at schools with a statewide API rank of 8. The exceptions are Latino/a or
Hispanic teachers, teachers of other ethnicities, teachers who have taught
1 to 5 years, and teachers with only a bachelors degree, who generally prefer
teaching at schools with a statewide rank of 5. In other words, these teachers
would prefer not to work at the highest performing schools.
Latino/a or Hispanic teachers in this study are unique in other ways, as
Table 5 demonstrates. They only slightly prefer schools where half of the students are Latino or African American compared to high-minority schools (where
95% of the students are Latino or African American) and greatly prefer teaching
at high-minority schools over low-minority ones (where only 5% of the students
are Latino or African American). Furthermore, Latino/a or Hispanic teachers
have a much higher average utility value for high-minority schools than other
teachers, indicating that these teachers are more likely than others to select and
remain at schools where there are large concentrations of students of color.
Similar patterns are observed with Latino/a or Hispanic teachers and student
socioeconomic status and performance levels, indicating that these teachers are
more likely than others to select and remain at schools where there are large
concentrations of poor and/or low-performing students.
Policy Implications and Need for Further Research
Teachers appear to care about working conditionsin some cases,
even more than they care about student-body characteristics (such as student
ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or performance). This is good news from a
policy perspective for it is very difficult to change the student demographics
of schools, as evidenced by school desegregation policies, whereas working
conditions are much more amenable to policy influences. For example,
recently enacted California legislation aims to more equitably distribute
teachers across schools by improving working conditions. Senate Bill 1133
will invest $3 billion to aid low-performing schools in reducing class sizes,
improving teacher and principal training, and adding counselors. Senate Bill
1209 aims to reduce barriers to entry into the teaching profession, provide
training and support to new teachers, and provide incentives for experienced teachers to serve as mentors. The findings from this study suggest that
policies aimed at improving the working conditions at traditionally hard-tostaff schools may be effective at reducing teacher turnover.
Although certain working conditions appear to be more important to
teachers than salaries, this does not rule out the possibility that salary increases
can be used to compensate teachers for less favorable working conditions and
712
Teacher Tradeoffs
therefore provide incentives to equalize the distribution of teachers across
schools. Seventeen states currently offer financial incentives to attract teachers
to hard-to-staff schoolsmost commonly in the form of college scholarships,
deferment of college loans, housing benefits, free or discounted teacher training, yearly bonuses, or salary increases (J. Johnson, 2005). California offers
teachers willing to teach in hard-to-staff schools loan forgiveness (Assumption
Program of Loans for Education), one-time salary bonuses if they are National
Board Certified (National Board for Professional Teachers Standards Certification
Incentives Program), and low-interest mortgages, tax credits, and deferredpayment loads for first-time homebuyers (Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase
Program). However, the results of this study indicate that monetary incentives,
such as salary increases, would need to be substantial to effectively attract
teachers to hard-to-staff schoolsparticularly if they are not accompanied by
improvements in working conditions.
Finally, teacher turnover might be minimized by targeting teacher
recruitment efforts on teachers who appear to derive high utility from teaching low-income, minority, and low-performing students (such as Latino/a or
Hispanic teachers). Some alternative teacher credentialing programs are
particularly effective at recruiting and training teachers of colorexamples
include the New York City Teaching Fellows program, the Metropolitan
Multicultural Teacher Education Program in Milwaukee, and the Boston
Teacher Residency.
While this study indicates that, on average, some working conditions
such as school facilities, administrative support, and class sizeare more
important to teachers than salaries or student characteristics, it does not explain
why these characteristics are important to teachers. For example, a clean and
safe school facility may be very important to teachers because it boosts their
morale or because it helps students learn better or because it makes the school
a more pleasant place to be for themselves, students, and parents. For nonquantitative descriptions of the characteristic levels (such as poor administrative support or clean and safe facilities), the structure of the survey does not
permit in-depth explanations. Rather, it was left to the respondent to interpret
the choices presented. Follow-up studies are necessary to investigate how
respondents interpreted the choices (e.g., what they perceive as clean and
safe facilities), why certain characteristics are important to teachers, and
which aspects of these characteristics are the most important (such as quiet
classrooms vs. clean bathrooms vs. a graffiti-free campus vs. a safe parking
lot). There is also a need to investigate working conditions not included in this
study which are likely to be important to teacherssuch as opportunities for
collaboration, staff development, types of students such as English language
learners, autonomy, and school neighborhood characteristics.
Additionally, while this study suggests that improved working conditions
and salary increases may be effective in recruiting and retaining teachers at
hard-to-staff schools, more research needs to be done on the actual costs and
benefits of implementing alternative policies, taking into account the feasibility of implementation, availability of resources, and indirect benefits.
713
Horng
Notes
This research was supported by a UC ACCORD Dissertation Fellowship.
1 There are other working conditions which are likely to be important to teachers
(such as opportunities for collaboration, staff development, types of students such as
English language learners, autonomy, and school neighborhood characteristics) which
could not be addressed in the scope of this study. The working conditions included in this
study were chosen because there is some empirical evidence that they are important to
teachers and they are amenable to policy influences.
2 Note that conjoint analysis is not a statistical analysis technique but rather a methodology to investigate how individuals make tradeoffs.
3 In accordance with the wishes of district officials, Crystal Springs School District is
a pseudonym.
4 Note that importance scores are relative not absolute measures. Therefore, the average importance score of student ethnicity (5.95) does not mean that student ethnicity is
not important to teachers but rather that it is not as important as the other characteristics
included in this study.
5 Note that some subgroups needed to be combined due to insufficient sample sizes.
For example, the African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Native American subgroups were collapsed into one subgroup labeled other ethnicities.
6 Only 9 workplace characteristics are included in the MANOVA because the 10 characteristic importance scores are related (totaling 100 for each respondent). Input on
school-wide decisions is chosen to be excluded from this model because it is the least
significant of the working condition variables.
7 However, the conjoint analysis methodology is likely to be more reliable than traditional self-explicated reports which directly ask subjects to identify the value they place
on characteristics independently. With conjoint analysis, respondents value systems are
inferred from their choices rather than from potentially inaccurate self-explicated reports
as to how important each of the various characteristics is to them. For example, respondents were not asked directly if they would rather teach African American/Latino or
White/Asian students and were not asked directly if student ethnicity was more important
to them than class size. Rather, these preferences were inferred from the tradeoffs the
teachers made in the process of completing the survey.
8 Note that if the characteristic levels presented in the survey were different, the
characteristic importance scores would be different. For example, if the class size options
had ranged from 18 to 24 students, class size would have been relatively less important,
and conversely, if the class size options had ranged from 12 to 40 students, class size
would have been relatively more important.
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Manuscript received August 27, 2007

Revision received October 31, 2008
Accepted November 12, 2008
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American Educational Research

Teacher Tradeoffs: Disentangling Teachers Preferences for Working

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American Educational Research Journal

Teacher Tradeoffs: Disentangling Teachers

ne of the greatest differences in resources across schools in California

Background:Teacher Turnover and Preferences of Teachers

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Methods: Conjoint Analysis of Teachers Preferences

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Results:The Importance of Different Workplace Characteristics

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Average Utility Valuess

Average Utility Values and Importance Scores

Figure 2. Average importance scores for the workplace characteristic variables.

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Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

Comparing Subgroups of Teachers

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Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

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Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

predictor variable (i.e., respondent background) and by criterion variable

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Discussion: New Insights Into Teacher Preferences

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Utility (Value of School Profile to Teachers)

clean and safe

NOT clean and

Figure 3. Overall utilities of four hypothetical job profiles.

school. As previously described, studies conducted by S. J. Carroll et al. (2000),

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The overall utilities of Profile C (+61.30) and Profile D (62.91) indicate

Average Importance Score

Figure 4. Average importance scores of the workplace characteristic variables

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Manuscript received August 27, 2007

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