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School accountability Incentives or sorting?

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We exploit a nested school accountability reform to estimate the causal effect on teacher mobility, sorting, and student achievement. In 2003, lower-secondary schools in Oslo became accountable to the school district authority for student achievement. In 2005, information on school performance in lower secondary education also became public. Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach, we find a significant increase in teacher mobility and that almost all non-stayers leave the teaching sector entirely. The impact is larger on high-ability teachers following the second part of the reform. Non-stayers are largely replaced by high-ability teachers, indicating a positive sorting effect. We find a small, positive effect on student achievement after the second part of the reform, thus the mechanism in place seems to be positive teacher sorting rather than teacher incentives.

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  • Hege Marie Gjefsen & Trude Gunnes, 2015. "School accountability Incentives or sorting?," Discussion Papers 815, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:815
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    school accountability regimes; design of incentives; teacher turnover; teacher quality; teacher sorting; student achievement; difference-in-difference-in-difference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

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