Searching for Effective Teachers with Imperfect Information

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 97-118, 2010

29 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2011

See all articles by Jonah E. Rockoff

Jonah E. Rockoff

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Douglas Staiger

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: 2010

Abstract

Teaching may be the most-scrutinized occupation in the economy. Over the past four decades, empirical researchers — many of them economists — have accumulated an impressive amount of evidence on teachers: the heterogeneity in teacher productivity, the rise in productivity associated with teaching credentials and on-the-job experience, rates of turnover, the costs of recruitment, the relationship between supply and quality, the effect of class size and the monetary value of academic achievement gains over a student's lifetime. Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, along with a number of state-level educational initiatives, the data needed to estimate individual teacher performance based on student achievement gains have become more widely available. However, there have been relatively few efforts to examine the implications of this voluminous literature on teacher performance. In this paper, we ask what the existing evidence implies for how school leaders might recruit, evaluate, and retain teachers.

Suggested Citation

Rockoff, Jonah E. and Staiger, Douglas, Searching for Effective Teachers with Imperfect Information (2010). Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 97-118, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1949322

Jonah E. Rockoff (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Douglas Staiger

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics ( email )

Hanover, NH 03755
United States
603-643-2979 (Phone)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
71
Abstract Views
576
Rank
586,998
PlumX Metrics