Testing, Teacher Turnover and the Distribution of Teachers Across Grades and Schools

Dillon Fuchsman (), Tim Sass and Gema Zamarro
Additional contact information
Dillon Fuchsman: Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University, Postal: 3700 West Pine Mall Blvd., Fusz Hall, 358, St. Louis, MO 63103, https://www.slu.edu/research/sinquefield-center-for-applied-economic-research/index.php
Tim Sass: Georgia State University

No 20-1, Working Papers from Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University

Abstract: Teacher turnover has adverse consequences for student achievement and imposes large financial costs for schools. Some have argued that high-stakes testing may lower teachers’ satisfaction with their jobs and could be a major contributor to teacher attrition. In this paper, we exploit changes in the tested grades and subjects in Georgia to study the effects of eliminating high-stakes testing on teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers across grades and schools. To measure the effect of testing pressures on teacher mobility choices we use a "difference-in-differences" approach, comparing changes in mobility over time in grades/subjects that discontinue testing vis-à-vis grades/subjects that are always tested. Our results show that eliminating testing did not have an impact on the likelihood of leaving teaching, changing schools within a district, or moving between districts. We only uncover small negative effects on the likelihood of grade switching. However, we do find relevant positive effects on retention of beginning teachers in the profession. In particular, the average probability of exit for teachers with 0-4 years of experience fell from 14 to 13 percentage points for teachers in grades 1 and 2 and from 14 to 11 percentage points in grades 6 and 7.

Keywords: teacher turnover; high-stakes testing; accountability pressure difference-in-differences approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2020-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.slu.edu/research/sinquefield-center-fo ... acher-turnover-1.pdf Full text (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:sluecr:2020_001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ADB Institute ().