Panel Paper: What Kind of Teachers Are Schools Looking For? Evidence From a Randomized Field Experiment

Saturday, November 9, 2013 : 8:40 AM
Scott (Westin Georgetown)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Peter Hinrichs, Georgetown University
Teacher quality is a pressing public policy concern, yet there is little evidence on how effective schools are at selecting teachers.  This paper reports the results of an experiment that involved sending schools fictitious resumes with randomly-chosen characteristics in an attempt to determine what characteristics schools value when hiring new teachers.  The results of the study suggest that an applicant’s academic credentials have little impact on the likelihood of success, that schools may display a slight preference for female applicants, and that schools display a strong aversion to out-of-state applicants.  Interestingly, some of these results may be stronger at private and charter schools than at traditional public schools.