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Teacher Performance and Accountability Incentives

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  • Hugh Macartney
  • Robert McMillan
  • Uros Petronijevic

Abstract

This paper documents a new empirical regularity: teacher value-added increases within-teacher when accountability incentives are strengthened. That finding motivates a strategy to separate value-added into incentive-varying teacher effort and incentive-invariant teacher ability, combining rich longitudinal data with exogenous incentive-policy variation from North Carolina. Our estimates indicate that teacher effort and ability both raise current and future test scores, with ability having stronger effects. These estimates feed into a framework for comparing the cost-effectiveness of alternative education policies. For illustration, we show incentive-oriented reforms can outperform policies targeting teacher ability, given their potential to influence all teachers rather than a subset.

Suggested Citation

  • Hugh Macartney & Robert McMillan & Uros Petronijevic, 2018. "Teacher Performance and Accountability Incentives," Working Papers tecipa-610, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-610
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2008. "Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 14607, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Reback, Randall, 2009. "Corrigendum for Table 4 of "Teaching to the rating: School accountability and the distribution of student achievement" [Journal of Public Economics 92 (2008) 1394-1415]," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 352-353, February.
    3. Reback, Randall, 2008. "Teaching to the rating: School accountability and the distribution of student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1394-1415, June.
    4. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2011. "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," NBER Working Papers 17699, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Andrew Bacher-Hicks & Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2014. "Validating Teacher Effect Estimates Using Changes in Teacher Assignments in Los Angeles," NBER Working Papers 20657, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Thomas S. Dee & James Wyckoff, 2015. "Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 267-297, March.
    7. Figlio, David & Loeb, Susanna, 2011. "School Accountability," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 383-421, Elsevier.
    8. Hugh Macartney & Robert McMillan & Uros Petronijevic, 2015. "Incentive Design in Education: An Empirical Analysis," NBER Working Papers 21835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Cited by:

    1. Joshua B. Gilbert & Zachary Himmelsbach & James Soland & Mridul Joshi & Benjamin W. Domingue, 2024. "Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with Item-Level Outcome Data: Insights from Item Response Theory," Papers 2405.00161, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2025.
    2. Dora Gicheva, 2022. "Altruism and Burnout: Long Hours in the Teaching Profession," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(2), pages 427-457, March.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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