This seems compelling, but I’m not sure it’s right. If the SAB actually does cause a significant improvement in teaching quality for a negligible cost, then students should be attracted to schools that implement it. That school can increase its tuition. As improved teaching is causing that increased demand, teachers can be expected to have improved negotiating power over their wages in the future.
If this is true, then why don’t teachers step up their game now? My theory is that they’re suffering from a free-rider problem. My premises are:
Teacher salaries are primarily determined by overall student demand for the school. Student demand for the school is determined by the median teaching quality at the school.
High performance is costly to the teacher—it takes more time, energy, or talent than mediocre teaching.
With these premises in mind, then we might expect that some individual teachers would tend to slack off.
By introducing an immediate incentive to up their game, it changes the incentive structure. Teachers now have a tangible reason not to slack off. So presuming that a Student-Allocated Bonus actually incentivizes teachers to teach well, I think it would have the effect of increasing their salaries in the long run.
This doesn’t work as well if students are rewarding teachers for being soft graders and teaching easy classes. I think this is the stronger critique of the Student-Allocated Bonus: it may not incentivize the desired behavior from teachers.
Student demand for the school is determined by the median teaching quality at the school.
That’s just one of many things. For example, in USA many students seem to care about sport.
Another important thing is classmates. It is a wise investment to make the important people of the future your former classmates. And this is a game of self-fulfilling prophecies, with some schools acting as Schelling points.
If everyone believes the best students go to X, you also apply for X, and if many people follow this logic and the school chooses the best among those who applied, then it becomes true, and you might get a certificate of having studied at the school for the best. This mechanism is almost independent on quality of teaching. One might assume that the best students would prefer having the best teachers, ceteris paribus, but given the choice between having a diploma from school A known for having great teachers and mediocre students, or school B known for having mediocre teachers but best students, it is not obvious you should choose A. -- Plus, there is a lot of halo effect; people will automatically assume that a high-status school has better teachers; you can change the impression by advertising, etc.
I should have said “partially determined.” I’m sure we can agree that perceived teaching quality is an important factor in why students choose one school over another.
Yes. I just think that the perception of teaching quality is… prone to all kinds of biases. Unless you actually studied at both schools, so you can compare both using your own experience.
So the money the school could spend on hiring better teachers might be better spent on advertising. I am not suggesting hiring bad teachers, rather the same ones as your competitors, and if you have extra money left, spend it elsewhere.
This seems compelling, but I’m not sure it’s right. If the SAB actually does cause a significant improvement in teaching quality for a negligible cost, then students should be attracted to schools that implement it. That school can increase its tuition. As improved teaching is causing that increased demand, teachers can be expected to have improved negotiating power over their wages in the future.
If this is true, then why don’t teachers step up their game now? My theory is that they’re suffering from a free-rider problem. My premises are:
Teacher salaries are primarily determined by overall student demand for the school. Student demand for the school is determined by the median teaching quality at the school.
High performance is costly to the teacher—it takes more time, energy, or talent than mediocre teaching.
With these premises in mind, then we might expect that some individual teachers would tend to slack off.
By introducing an immediate incentive to up their game, it changes the incentive structure. Teachers now have a tangible reason not to slack off. So presuming that a Student-Allocated Bonus actually incentivizes teachers to teach well, I think it would have the effect of increasing their salaries in the long run.
This doesn’t work as well if students are rewarding teachers for being soft graders and teaching easy classes. I think this is the stronger critique of the Student-Allocated Bonus: it may not incentivize the desired behavior from teachers.
That’s just one of many things. For example, in USA many students seem to care about sport.
Another important thing is classmates. It is a wise investment to make the important people of the future your former classmates. And this is a game of self-fulfilling prophecies, with some schools acting as Schelling points.
If everyone believes the best students go to X, you also apply for X, and if many people follow this logic and the school chooses the best among those who applied, then it becomes true, and you might get a certificate of having studied at the school for the best. This mechanism is almost independent on quality of teaching. One might assume that the best students would prefer having the best teachers, ceteris paribus, but given the choice between having a diploma from school A known for having great teachers and mediocre students, or school B known for having mediocre teachers but best students, it is not obvious you should choose A. -- Plus, there is a lot of halo effect; people will automatically assume that a high-status school has better teachers; you can change the impression by advertising, etc.
I should have said “partially determined.” I’m sure we can agree that perceived teaching quality is an important factor in why students choose one school over another.
Yes. I just think that the perception of teaching quality is… prone to all kinds of biases. Unless you actually studied at both schools, so you can compare both using your own experience.
So the money the school could spend on hiring better teachers might be better spent on advertising. I am not suggesting hiring bad teachers, rather the same ones as your competitors, and if you have extra money left, spend it elsewhere.