8. Conclusion and Future Directions

The Teacher Compensation Survey (TCS) has the potential to address research and policy needs in that it provides data that can be used to chart compensation, teacher status, and demographic data for teachers from multiple states. The TCS data can be used to analyze the compensation offered to attract teachers and the ability to retain teachers. As the number of states participating in the TCS expands, and as more states assign teacher identifiers that are used from year to year, the data from more states will be able to support longitudinal analysis of salaries, retention, and mobility.

The TCS data can support research ranging from a straightforward determination of base salary levels for varying degrees of experience and education to analyses of teachers' salaries by teachers' characteristics. By merging the TCS with the Common Core of Data (CCD) School Universe file, researchers can further explore associations between teachers' compensation and experience, level of education, geographic location, teachers' demographic characteristics (race/ethnicity, sex, and age), and selected characteristics of the schools and children that they teach (e.g., student poverty).

The consistency between the TCS data and data on teachers from the School Universe and National Education Association (NEA) surveys suggests that the TCS collection is a reliable source of information on teachers' compensation.

There are some substantive challenges to the TCS, such as the fact that not all state education agencies (SEAs) collect administrative data on teachers' compensation, particularly health and retirement benefits information, and not all states can track teachers over time. However, the majority of challenges to the TCS will be surmounted as states continue to develop or improve their educational data systems.

While the school year (SY) 2006–07 administration of the TCS described in this report incorporates data from only 17 states, growing from 7 states in the SY 2005–06 collection, it is the first step in creating a comprehensive teacher compensation dataset for every public-school teacher in the nation. With approximately 33 percent of teachers in the nation included in the current dataset, the TCS already covers a substantial number of teachers. In 2010, 23 states are currently reporting data for SY 2008–09. For SY 2009–10 the TCS is expected to include 30–35 states. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will continue to recruit new states to the survey, with the goal of building a complete universe of teacher compensation data. In accomplishing this goal, NCES will work with states to ensure accuracy and comparability, as well as confidentiality of personally identifiable data. As states participate over time, the capacity for longitudinal intrastate analyses will increase. NCES anticipates that compensation data related to benefits, which currently remain elusive, will become increasingly available as states continue to coordinate their data systems.

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