T EACHER INCENTIVES AND LOCAL PARTICIPATION : E VIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED PROGRAM IN K ENYA Joost de Laat Michael Kremer Christel Vermeersch

W HAT KIND OF TEACHER INCENTIVES ? Narrow incentives  easy to game Glewwe et al. (2003), Lavy (2004), Jacob and Levitt (2003) Broader incentives using community information Local communities may have broader information on teacher performance Criteria may be harder to game Repeated interactions and commitment problems.

C OMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN K ENYAN SCHOOLS : SCHOOL COMMITTEES Conformation: mandated by law 15 members: 9 elected parent representatives, 2 District Education Board delegates, 3 sponsors, head teacher. Elected yearly by parent assembly Roles: oversee disbursement of capitation grants design & implementation of school development plans communicate with local education office about any issues Suggesting promotions and transfer of teachers to MoE officials, no hiring

P ROGRAM GOALS AND CONTENT Improving accountability: stronger collaboration between school, school committee, and local educational authorities Incentives for teachers: prizes to be assigned by the school committee, based on broad criteria (50% of a month salary) Knowledge of financial procedures & oversight: training of school committee

I DENTIFICATION AND DATA Randomized evaluation: 34 treatment, 34 comparison schools Data: Voting behavior for prize allocation Composition of school committee School committee activities Teacher and student attendance Classroom activities Student scores on national exam

P RIZE ALLOCATION Criteria varied over the years Year 2: Important: male, senior teachers and relatives/neighbors of committee members Not important: Good attendance SC did not rate males and relatives/neighbors higher in terms of quality Year 3: Important: good attendance Not important: male and relative/neighbor of SC members

R ESULTS, OVERALL Teacher attendance: no effect overall (from 87% level) negative impact on types “wrongfully” favored Teacher turnover: No overall effect Classroom observations: Some increase in idle time Increase in homework allocation Pupil attendance: no effect Test scores: no effect

R ESULTS IN FINAL YEAR ONLY School committees more likely to meet with parents School committees more likely to discuss teaching matters with teachers

C OMPOSITION OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE Baseline: 82% male, Avg. 49 years old Avg <8 years of education 85% peasant farmers Program impact: No change in turnover Increase in education levels (0.58 years) Increase in average age (1.54 years) No changes in other characteristics

C ONCLUSIONS Community based evaluation is not a panacea Overall: little to no impact Some perverse incentives, especially at the beginning Took time for positive changes to happen Related to the yearly SC election cycle? No enough time to evaluate long term effect