1 Comments on Kirabo Jackson: «Recruiting and Retaining Quality Teachers» Torberg Falch Department of Economics Norwegian University of Science and technology

2 Summary of the paper Part 1: Are teachers important? –Yes: Large variation across teachers in test score value- added (that is, student learning) –This value-added of the teachers is positively related to long term outcomes of the students (less drop out of high school, higher college attendance, higher earnings) Part 2: How to improve the quality of teaching? –Three main policies discussed Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers Financial incentives within schools Improving teachers’ teaching skills –All policies seem to have the potential to be effective Based on US evidence

3 Is US evidence relevant for the Nordic countries? Similar institutions in many aspects –Decentralized responsibility of primary and secondary education –Hiring of teachers at the local level –Similar remuneration systems and wage structure –Influential teacher unions –But, teacher education seems to differ

4 Similar behavior (except Finland) –Decline in the size and quality of the pool of available teachers –Similar turnover rates of teachers –Similar factors influencing teacher turnover Therefore, US evidence seems highly relevant, in particular on issues not much studied in the Nordic countries –Variation in teacher quality –Effects of financial incentives –Interventions of various kinds

5 Recruiting and retaining high- quality teachers Would be interesting with some more discussion on recruitment behavior –In the paper it is to a large extent a discussion of how the wage influence the attractiveness of being a teacher (the supply side) –The outcome (actual teacher quality) is probably also related to recruitment policy (demand side) –With open access (the US case): Outcome depends on whether schools hire the high-quality individuals (active hiring) or not (random hiring) –Without open access (Nordic case): Increased attractiveness of being a teacher would increase the mean quality of teacher students. Other factors than the wage important for the attractiveness of the teacher profession?

6 Financial incentives within schools The paper argues that financial incentives based on teacher value-added have largest effects when –using well-established tests –directed towards individual teachers and not towards schools Can financial incentives be effective also when yearly well-established tests are not in place? Is it possible to think in terms of group incentives within schools (for example grade level incentives)

7 Improving teachers’ teaching skills The evidence indicates that some within-school programs can be effective (mentoring, evaluations in classrooms, feedback from colleagues) The paper argues that then also external training programs could be effective But the evidence can also be interpreted differently; namely that only within-school programs seems to be effective This seems to be the policy with the least empirical evidence, and where more evidence would be of great importance