The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been criticized for encouraging schools to neglect students whose performance exceeds the proficiency threshold or lies so far below it that there is no reasonable prospect of closing the gap during the current year. We examine this hypothesis using longitudinal data from 2002-03 through 2005-06. Our…

The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states have been required to set minimum proficiency standards that virtually all students must meet by 2014. Sanctions of increasing severity are to be applied to schools that fail to meet interim targets, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The authors examine the effect of this legislation using…

In this paper we examine the research literature on teacher performance pay. Evidence clearly suggests an upsurge of interest in many states and school districts; however, expanded use of performance pay has been controversial. We briefly review the history of teacher pay policy in the U.S. and earlier cycles of interest in merit or…