REPLY Segmented Market Labor Dynamics (SD6458)

[SDMAIL Robertson, Pete]

Posted by  "Robertson, Pete" <PRobertson at ETS.ORG>

When California suddenly and dramatically reduced class sizes in 1996,
it had unintended consequences:  Wealthy school districts desperate to
hire enough teachers and able to pay more than poor urban districts
stripped the poor districts of their good teachers, increasing the
achievement gap.  There has been some system dynamics discussion about
this, I BELIEVE referenced in Baker, B.D., Richards, C.E. (2004) The
Ecology of Educational Systems (but don't buy it on this account,
because I'm just not sure).  Bruce Baker who co-wrote it WOULD know
where to find any system dynamics work on the California teacher case.
Also, it has apparently been simulated as a multi-agent system (SimEd:
simulating education as a multi agent system, Sklar, E. Davies, M. Co,
M.S.T  Columbia University).

The California experience MAY be a good case study for you, and a good
starting point to search for System Dynamics related literature.  If you
do model, don't forget to look at retirement benefits and their effect
on teacher "stickiness."  In the US it puts significant switching cost
barriers for teachers between public and private systems once they've
been teaching for 15-20 years (though arguably other barriers are WAY
more important, like an ideological commitment to public education
versus an aversion to union membership).  

Peter Robertson
R&D Development Leader
Educational Testing Service
Posted by  "Robertson, Pete" <PRobertson at ETS.ORG>
posting date  Thu, 31 May 2007 11:53:46 -0400