In an effort to reduce salary costs, many school districts have begun to offer teachers financial incentives to retire early. Often, however, these districts have limits on the number of cumulated unused sick leave days that teachers may receive cash payments, credits toward future health...

This paper addresses how provisions that address leave usage in teacher contracts influence teacher absences from the classroom, how teacher absences influence student absenteeism, and how teacher and student absenteeism influence student test score performance. Based on an extensive data...

Our paper analyzes historical data for New York State on the percentage of school board budget proposals that are defeated each year and panel data that we collected for individual school districts in the state. We find that changes in state aid have little impact on budget vote success....

Our paper analyzes historical data for New York State on the percentagee of school budget proposals that are defeated each year and panel data that we have collected on budget vote success for indvidual school districts in the state. We find that changes in state aid matter, but not as much as...

Given the important role that school district administrators play in the educational process, one might expect their "performance" to be of fundamental importance in determining both how much students learn and the cost of public education to taxpayers. Yet, while public debate has considered...