Accountability systems are designed to introduce market pressures to increase efficiency in education. One potential channel by which this can occur is to match with effective teachers in the transfer market. I use a smooth maximum score estimator model, North Carolina data, and the state's bonus system to analyze how teachers and schools change…

Policy makers and school leaders are perennially concerned with the capacity of the nation's public schools to recruit and retain highly skilled teachers. Over the past two decades, policy strategies including the federal No Child Left Behind Act and alternative pathways to teaching, as well as changes in the broader labor market, have altered the…

We examine behavioral responses to an incentive program that offers high-performing teachers in ten school districts across the country $20,000 to transfer into the district's hardest-to-staff schools. We discuss behavioral responses to the program on high-performing teachers' willingness to transfer (supply) and the effect of the transfer offer…

Because of the rigid salary structure in the public teacher labor market, principals may have the incentive to align classes favorably for high-quality teachers as a form of nonmonetary compensation. This article tests whether higher-quality teachers, holding other characteristics constant, tend to be matched with more favorable assignments. The…

The literature on effective schools emphasizes the importance of a quality teaching force in improving educational outcomes for students. In this article we use value-added methods to examine the relationship between a school's effectiveness and the recruitment, assignment, development, and retention of its teachers. Our results reveal four key…

This article explores whether new teachers are assigned to tough classrooms and whether such classroom assignment is associated with higher teacher mobility. It utilizes the statewide administrative data set on public school teachers in Florida during the period 1997-2003 in conjunction with the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey and its…