Teacher-School Matches Matter

Kirabo Jackson finds that teachers who change schools have a greater positive effect on their students' test scores at their new school than at their old school. Analyzing data from North Carolina, Jackson also observes that teacher "match quality" -- that is, how good a fit the teacher is for a particular school -- and teacher quality are positively correlated. He concludes that ”part of what we typically interpret as a teacher quality effect [on student performance] is in fact a match quality effect that may not be portable across schooling environments."

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