TY  - JOUR
AU  - Angrist,Joshua D.
AU  - Guryan,Jonathan
TI  - Does Teacher Testing Raise Teacher Quality? Evidence from State Certification Requirements
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9545
PY  - 2003
Y2  - March 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9545
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9545.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joshua Angrist
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-353
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8909
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: angrist@mit.edu

Jonathan Guryan
Northwestern University
Institute for Policy Research
2040 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847/467-7144
E-Mail: j-guryan@northwestern.edu
AB  - The education reform movement includes efforts to raise teacher quality through stricter certification and licensing provisions. Most US states now require public school teachers to pass a standardized test such as the National Teacher Examination. Although any barrier to entry is likely to raise wages in the affected occupation, the theoretical effects of such requirements on teacher quality are ambiguous. Teacher testing places a floor on whatever skills are measured by the required test, but testing is also costly for applicants. These costs shift teacher supply to the left and may be especially likely to deter high-quality applicants from teaching in the public schools. We use the Schools and Staffing Survey to estimate the effect of state teacher testing requirements on teacher wages and teacher quality as measured by educational background. The results suggest that state-mandated teacher testing increases teacher wages with no corresponding increase in quality.
ER  -