Do Financial Incentives Help Low-Performing Schools Attract and Keep Academically Talented Teachers? Evidence from California

We would like to thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for each funding portions of this research. We are also grateful to the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC), the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC), and the California State University Chancellor's Office (CSUCO) for providing the data, and particularly to Karen Vogel-Henderson, Catalina Mistler, Steve Caldwell, and Paula Rockwell at the CSAC; Dale Janssen, Marjorie Suckow, and Erin Duff at the CCTC; and Sabine Ghobriel, Daba Asemebo, and Beverly Young of the CSUCO. In addition, we appreciate the insights into the Governor's Teaching Fellowship provided by Ellen Curtis-Pierce, Philip Curtis, Anita Flemington, and Debby Ford. Portions of this study were presented at the 2007 Fall Conference of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management, the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, and the 2008 Fall Education Meeting of the National Bureau of Economic Research. We thank Bridget Terry Long, Brian Jacob, Guido Imbens, and Caroline Hoxby for comments on earlier drafts. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not represent those of the project sponsors, the RAND Corporation, any of its sponsors, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.