We use six years of panel data on students and teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of recently hired teachers in the New York City public schools. On average, the initial certification status of a teacher has small impacts on student test performance. However, among those with the same experience and certification status, there are large and…

Teacher compensation schemes are often criticized for lacking a performance-based component. Proponents of merit pay argue that linking teacher salaries to student achievement will incentivize teachers to focus on raising student achievement and stimulate innovation across the school system as a whole. In this paper, we utilize a policy experiment…