The Effects of No Child Left Behind School Accountability on Teacher Turnover

• In Event: 73.061 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 73.061-5 - Teacher Labor Market: Hiring, Distribution, and Retention

Abstract

This study examines the effects of NCLB school accountability on school staffing and teacher turnover. We draw from four waves of data on nationally representative samples from Schools and Staffing Surveys and Teacher Follow-Up Surveys from 1993-94 to 2008-09, and use difference-in-differences models. We find that NCLB increased the average rate of teachers involuntarily transferring to other schools due to school-initiated separations, while it had little impact on the likelihood of teachers’ leaving teaching profession altogether. Moreover, the results did not provide sufficient evidence that disadvantaged/hard-to-staffing schools became more likely to initiate separations from their teachers. Our results did not confirm the anecdotal hypothesis that NCLB school accountability makes teachers more likely to voluntarily leave disadvantaged or urban schools.

Authors

• Min Sun, University of Washington - Seattle

• Andrew Saultz, Miami University - Oxford

• Yincheng Ye, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University