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Educator labor markets

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Personnel evaluation systems have historically failed to identify and remediate low-performing teachers. In 2012, Chicago Public Schools implemented an evaluation system that incorporated remediation and dismissal plans for low-rated teachers. Regression discontinuity estimates indicate that the evaluation reform increased the exit of low-rated tenured teachers by 50 percent. The teacher labor supply available to replace low-rated teachers was higher performing on multiple dimensions, and instrumental variables estimates indicate that policy-induced exit of low-rated teachers significantly improved teacher quality in subsequent years. Policy simulations show that the teacher labor supply in Chicago is sufficient to remove significantly more low-performing teachers.

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Cognition, a component of human capital, is fundamental for decision-making, and understanding the causes of human capital depreciation in old age is especially important in aging societies. Using various proxy measures of cognitive performance from a longitudinal survey in South Africa, we study how education affects cognition in late adulthood. We show that an extra year of schooling improves memory performance and general cognition. We find evidence of heterogeneous effects by gender: the effects are stronger among women. We explore potential mechanisms, and we show that a more supportive social environment, improved health habits, and reduced stress levels likely play a critical role in mediating the beneficial effects of educational attainment on cognition among the elderly.

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Hiring quality teachers that best meet localized needs to provide students with authentic learning opportunities is crucial to both school and student success. Despite the clear importance of teacher hiring, especially in the current teacher labor market, a review of literature that synthesizes the full body of teacher hiring literature has long been missing from the field. This integrative literature review of 71 empirical studies in an era of federal accountability (2001-2020) provides a full portrait of K-12 teacher hiring research. In so doing, we identify what is known while also unearthing the many knowledge gaps that exist due to factors such as sample and methodological limitations. As such, this review of the literature provides practitioners and policymakers with a number of guideposts to help them with hiring decisions. This review also shows how much more there is to learn and signals to researchers where and how they might build off of the current knowledge base.

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This paper provides a longitudinal examination of teacher turnover across all publicly-funded, center-based early childhood sites in Louisiana. We follow 4,465 early educators teaching in fall 2016 up to seven times through the fall of 2019. We provide the first statewide estimates of within-year turnover in ECE, as well as the first statewide study tracking turnover rates in ECE over multiple years. We find high within-year turnover: about 10% of teachers observed in the fall are not teaching the following spring. We also show that over 60% of fall 2016 teachers are no longer teaching at the same site in fall 2019. Turnover is particularly high among child care teachers, teachers of toddlers, and new teachers.

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Many prior studies have examined whether there are average differences in levels of teaching effectiveness among graduates from different teacher preparation programs (TPPs); other studies have investigated which features of preparation predict graduates’ average levels of teaching effectiveness. This is the first study to examine whether there are average differences between TPPs in terms of graduates’ average growth, rather than levels, in teaching effectiveness, and to consider which features predict this growth. Examining all graduates from Tennessee TPPs from 2010 to 2018, we find meaningful differences between TPPs in terms of both levels and growth in teaching effectiveness. We also find that different TPP features, including areas of endorsement, program type, clinical placement type and length, program size, and faculty composition explain part of these differences. Yet, the features that predict initial teaching effectiveness are not the same features that predict growth.

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This study investigates whether a principal’s likelihood of hiring a teacher of color is sensitive to the racial composition of students in the school. We used an administrative dataset from Texas including 59,157 principal observations and 662,997 teacher observations spanning 2000 to 2017 in order to consider whether or not the disappearing diversity from a majority white school is a factor in principals’ decisions to hire teachers of color. We examined the hiring patterns of principals within schools where 50% of the students were white and compared the probability that a nonwhite teacher would be hired as the homogeneity of the student body increased (that is, as increasing proportions of the student body were white). We found that white principals were less likely to hire teachers of color as the proportion of white students approached 100%. This study provides initial evidence that teacher hires are not only sensitive to the principal’s race but also to the racial composition of the student body. Specifically, as the diversity of the student body disappears, so too does the principal’s likelihood of hiring a teacher of color.

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We examine the causal influence of educators elected to the school board on local education production. The key empirical challenge is that school board composition is endogenously determined through the electoral process. To overcome this, we develop a novel research design that leverages California's randomized assignment of the order that candidate names appear on election ballots. We find that an additional educator elected to the school board reduces charter schooling and increases teacher salaries in the school district relative to other board members. We interpret these findings as consistent with educator board members shifting bargaining in favor of teachers' unions.

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We document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and school personnel. Using longitudinal data from a large, nationally representative sample of adolescents, we explore the frequency, nature, and consequences of school-based natural mentorships. Estimates across a range of fixed effect (FE) specifications, including student FE and twins FE models, consistently show that students with school-based mentors achieve greater academic success and higher levels of post-secondary attainment. These apparent benefits are evident for students across a wide range of backgrounds but are largest for students of lower socioeconomic status.

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COVID-19 shuttered schools across the United States, upending traditional approaches to education. We examine teachers’ experiences during emergency remote teaching in the spring of 2020 using responses to a working conditions survey from a sample of 7,841 teachers across 206 schools and 9 states. Teachers reported a range of challenges related to engaging students in remote learning and balancing their professional and personal responsibilities. Teachers in high-poverty and majority Black schools perceived these challenges to be the most severe, suggesting the pandemic further increased existing educational inequities. Using data from both pre-post and retrospective surveys, we find that the pandemic and pivot to emergency remote teaching resulted in a sudden, large drop in teachers’ sense of success. We also demonstrate how supportive working conditions in schools played a critical role in helping teachers to sustain their sense of success. Teachers were less likely to experience declines in their sense of success when they worked in schools with strong communication, targeted training, meaningful collaboration, fair expectations, and authentic recognition during the pandemic.

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This case study offers an organizational perspective on the ways in which a collective bargaining agreement shaped the administrative functioning of schools within an urban district. The data demonstrate how rational choice assumptions failed to account for the everyday site interactions between principals and teachers. Using complexity theory as an analytic tool, the authors consider the interference of external pressures on a system defined by internal interdependence. Reforms that address the complexity of workplace conditions in K-12 contexts are offered.

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