Essays in the Economics of Education

This dissertation uses quasi-experimental evidence from Texas to examine how key policy levers–school funding, performance incentives, and teacher compensation–shape outcomes in public education. The first chapter (co-authored with Haruka Uchida) evaluates the impacts of a statewide education reform that increased districts' per-pupil funding and introduced incentives for districts to improve high school graduates' longer-run attainment outcomes. The second chapter estimates the elasticity of teacher labor supply to a district, in an institutional setting with features that facilitate mobility both into the public school teaching profession and between school districts.

The first chapter (co-authored with Haruka Uchida) sheds light on the effectiveness of per-pupil funding and incentives for school districts to improve high school graduates' attainment outcomes. We study a statewide reform in Texas that changed the formula that links district inputs to funding, and, in a novel shift from test-based accountability, introduced financial bonuses for districts based on high school graduates' attainment outcomes (e.g., college enrollment, completion of an industry-based certification). Using policy-driven, between-district variation in district spending and incentives, we find that both spending and incentives improved the composite attainment outcome targeted by the bonus policy, with impacts driven by industry-based certifications. Ex post, incentives were at least as cost-effective as funding in improving the composite attainment outcome. However, by focusing on graduates' outcomes, the bonus structure created an incentive for districts to reduce graduation among 12th graders who were unlikely to meet the attainment criteria, and we find that incentives decreased graduation rates. Our study aims to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of emerging accountability policies that incentivize longer-run attainment outcomes rather than solely test score outcomes. 

The second chapter is motivated by the observation that despite a need in many states to increase the supply of teachers to growing districts, there are aspects of the teacher labor market that may lead to a lower responsiveness of teacher supply to teacher pay (i.e., less elastic labor supply to a district). The effectiveness of teacher pay in attracting and retaining teachers is important because it is often the most readily available tool to district policymakers. Many states lack a highly robust alternative certification program network–programs which facilitate entry into the teaching profession–and award teachers only partial credit for prior out-of-district teaching experience, which can discourage mobility between school districts. In this chapter, I estimate the labor supply elasticity to a district using data from Texas. Texas is unique in that it has one of the highest shares of new teachers trained through alternative certification programs in the country, and it mandates that teachers receive full credit for prior out-of-district teaching experience. Estimates from Texas are therefore of interest because they may provide an upper bound for the labor supply elasticity to a school district. Using within-district, idiosyncratic variation in enrollment-driven demand, I find that labor supply elasticity to a school district in Texas can be as high as 7. My main estimate is predictably higher than that from a previous study using data from the 1980s in Missouri, a setting in which no alternative certification programs existed and teachers generally received partial credit for past out-of-district teaching experience. 

Data used in this study were obtained from the Texas Education Research Center at UT Dallas. The conclusions of this research do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official position of the Texas Education Research Center, the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Texas Workforce Commission, or the State of Texas.