CALDER researcher Michael Podgursky has received  2 competitive grants to conduct research using longitudinal data on Missouri students and teachers. Capitalizing on Missouri’s longitudinal data system (housed by the Missouri P-20 Center for Education Policy Research) which spans a student’s early childhood education through his or her tertiary education, researchers will identify effective schools and track student achievement and teacher performance.

The first, a 2-year grant funded by the Institute on Education Science (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education through CALDER, will allow researchers to examine the effect of the teacher pension system on school performance, teacher behavior, and student achievement.  “Incentives built into teacher pension systems allow retirement at early ages, but not all teachers take these retirement options,” says Podgursky. “We plan to examine whether more effective teachers are more likely to retire early, and the consequences for school performance of early retirements.” 

The second is a 3-year grant funded by IES. In this project, researchers will examine the effects of investments in professional development on student achivement, and take a closer look at the types of teacher preparation that are most effective in raising student achievement. “One important goal of this research is to develop econometric models to identify factors affecting teacher and school productivity,” says Podgursky.Podgursky collaborates with University of Missouri-Columbia economists Mark Ehlert, Cory Koedel, and Shawn Ni on both projects.

“To make an education system efficient, the right incentives for teachers must be in place,” says Ni. “Our research objective is to analyze how teachers respond to incentives and offer policy recommendations based on the analysis.” “The emerging research collected through the program could establish Missouri as a national leader in longitudinal data, meaning data taken over a period of time,” says Podgursky.