Rate My Professor Michael Podgursky

Michael Podgursky is Professor Emeritus and Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He holds the distinguished titles of Middlebush Professor of Economics and Chancellor's Professor of Economics. Podgursky served as Chair of the Economics Department from 1995 to 2005. In Business & Economics, his work centers on the economics of education, school finance, educator labor markets, teacher quality, compensation, and retirement systems. He earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1974 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980. Before joining the University of Missouri, he was on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1980 to 1995. Podgursky is also Professor of Economics in the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs.

Podgursky has published extensively on education policy and teacher quality, including the book Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality co-authored with Dale Ballou in 1997. His influential articles include "Teacher performance pay: A review" (2007, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management), "The academic quality of public school teachers: An analysis of entry and exit behavior" (2004, Economics of Education Review), "How to improve the supply of high-quality teachers" (2004, Brookings Papers on Education Policy), and "Reforming teacher preparation and licensing: What is the evidence?" (2000, Teachers College Record). His research has received grants from the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, and Agriculture, as well as private foundations. He serves on the editorial boards of Education Finance and Policy and Peabody Journal of Education, and on the boards of the National Center for Teacher Quality and the Missouri Show-Me Institute. Podgursky has consulted on school finance litigation for numerous states and organizations, and is a co-investigator at the National Center for Performance Incentives and the CALDER Center. A member of the American Economic Association, American Education Finance Association, and Society of Labor Economists, he received the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.