Education Sector Press Releases

For immediate release
January 8, 2007
Contact: Molly Norton
202-552-2849

Frozen Assets: How Rethinking Teacher Contracts Could Free Billions for School Reform

New Education Sector report estimates costs of common provisions in teacher contracts and suggests how resources could be used more effectively

Washington, D.C. – The No Child Left Behind Act is putting immense pressure on public schools to improve the performance of low-achieving students. To respond, schools must be able to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, strengthen curricula, and take other steps to provide struggling students with the help they need. But such reforms are expensive. One potentially valuable source of funding are common provisions in teacher contracts that obligate schools to spend large amounts of money on programs that often lack a clear link to student achievement.

A new report from Education Sector examines eight commonly-used provisions in teacher contracts that, according to research, have a weak relationship with student achievement. The report estimates how much money these requirements cost a typical school district and examines how these "frozen assets" might be put to better use. The analysis estimates that nearly one out of every five dollars in a typical district budget is locked up by the eight provisions. That translates to roughly $77 billion in annual public school spending nationally.

The report does not advocate lower public-school spending, or even less aggregate spending on teachers. To the contrary, there is a need to provide some school districts, particularly those that serve disadvantaged students, with larger overall amounts of money. But policymakers must make hard choices in allocating existing resources. "Frozen Assets" analyzes these trade-offs and suggests how existing public education resources could potentially be used more effectively.  

Marguerite Roza, the report author and an Education Sector nonresident senior fellow, says, "Both teachers and students would benefit if resources were put to better use. Financing school improvement is an enormous challenge and policymakers must look carefully at how existing resources are allocated.”

For example, money spent on seniority-based raises and generous health plans for senior-level teachers might be better used to raise minimum salaries to recruit younger, highly-qualified teachers. Or resources spent meeting mandatory class-size targets might be better used to hire teachers to provide after-school tutoring to low-performing children.

The eight common contract provisions that the report examines include: increases in teacher salaries based on years of experience; increases in teacher salaries based on educational credentials; professional development days; paid sick and personal days; class-size limitations; use of teachers' aides; and health insurance and retirement benefits.

For more information on this report, please visit: www.educationsector.org

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