Working Paper: NBER ID: w22054
Authors: Brian Jacob; Jonah E. Rockoff; Eric S. Taylor; Benjamin Lindy; Rachel Rosen
Abstract: Selecting more effective teachers among job applicants during the hiring process could be a highly cost-effective means of improving educational quality, but there is little research that links information gathered during the hiring process to subsequent teacher performance. We study the relationship among applicant characteristics, hiring outcomes, and teacher performance in the Washington DC Public Schools (DCPS). We take advantage of detailed data on a multi-stage application process, which includes written assessments, a personal interview, and sample lessons, as well as the annual evaluations of all DCPS teachers, based on multiple criteria. We identify a number of background characteristics (e.g., undergraduate GPA) as well as screening measures (e.g., applicant performance on a mock teaching lesson) that strongly predict teacher effectiveness. Interestingly, we find that these measures are only weakly, if at all, associated with the likelihood of being hired, suggesting considerable scope for improving teacher quality through the hiring process.
Keywords: teacher hiring; teacher performance; education policy
JEL Codes: I20; J20; M51
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| undergraduate GPA (A22) | teacher effectiveness (A21) |
| mock teaching lesson performance (A21) | teacher effectiveness (A21) |
| teacher effectiveness (A21) | educational outcomes (I26) |
| undergraduate GPA (A22) | hiring likelihood (M51) |
| mock teaching lesson performance (A21) | hiring likelihood (M51) |
| hiring quality (M51) | teacher retention (M51) |