The Dynamics of Teacher Turnover in Low and High-Poverty Schools

Abstract

This paper studies the implications for teacher turnover in low and high-poverty public schools of alternative teacher compensation contracts. Using existing data, I show that high-poverty school teachers exit and transfer at higher rates than low-poverty school teachers across years of teaching experience. I construct a quantitative search model with learning to explain the dynamics of teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers by years of experience in low and high-poverty schools. I use the model to simulate the impacts of alternative compensation contracts on teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers by experience in low and high-poverty schools. I find that an unconditional compensation contract and performance-based contract have favorable impact on teacher turnover. The impact of performance-based contract is lower than the impact of unconditional compensation contract, but the performance-based contract retains a higher share of effective teachers.