Volume 16, Number 1 (Winter) 1981
Murname, Richard J. 1981. "Teacher Mobility Revisited." Journal of Human Resources 16(1): 3-19.
The mobility patterns of teachers in one large urban school district are examined for the period from 1965 to 1974, using logit analysis. We find that teacher seniority and changes in student enrollments are much more important in explaining transfers and terminations in the 1970s than in the 1960s. The reason for this is that patterns of mobility no longer reflect primarily teacher preferences. Increasingly, they reflect the pattern of declining enrollments and the operation of rules that govern the disposition of surplus teachers. This change has affected the careers of teachers, the learning of children, and the fiscal stability of school districts.
The author is on the faculty of the Institution for Social and Policy
Studies, Yale University.
* The work upon which this paper is based was performed pursuant to contract No.
400-76-0157 of the National Institute of Education. It does not, however,
necessarily reflect the views of that agency. Additional research support was
provided by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, N.J., and by the
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University. I appreciate the
excellent research assistance provided by Michael Feuer, Patrick J. Murnane, and
Alicia Scott. I would like to thank Rebecca Maynard, Edward Pauly, Jon Peck,
Barbara Phillips, Michael Wachter, and two anonymous referees for helpful
comments on an earlier draft.
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