Teacher Quality and Incentives Research Project

1
Improving teaching and learning through effective
incentives What Can We Learn from Education
Reforms in Latin America?
Emiliana Vegas and Ilana Umansky The World Bank
2
Motivation

• Teacher costs represent the largest share of
  educational expenditure
• Teachers play a key role in school quality and
  student learning
• Attracting and retaining qualified teachers, and
  motivating them to do the best work they can, is
  arguably the most important education challenge

3
Components of the study

• Theoretical and empirical review of literature on
  teacher incentives
• Empirical analysis/update of relative teacher
  salaries in 17 Latin American countries
• 7 case studies/evaluations of education reforms
  affecting teachers
• Qualitative case studies in Chile and Peru of the
  political economy of teacher incentive reforms

4
Research team
Brazil Nora Gordon, U.C. San Diego, and Emiliana Vegas, World Bank
Chile Alejandra Mizala and Pilar Romaguera, Universidad de Chile
Mexico Patrick McEwan, Wellesley College, and Lucrecia Santibáñez, RAND Corporation
Bolivia Miguel Urquiola, Universidad de Columbia, and Emiliana Vegas, World Bank
El Salvador Yasuyuki Sawada and Andrew Ballard Ragatz, University of Tokyo
Honduras Emanuela Di Gropello, World Bank, and Jeffrey H. Marshall, Sapere.org
Nicaragua Caroline E. Parker, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Analysis of Teacher Pay in Latin America Werner Hernani-Limarino, Universidad of Pennsylvania
Literature Review Ilana Umansky, World Bank
Political Economy Luis Crouch, World Bank
5
Defining teaching quality

• What makes a teacher effective?
• In this study, we take the view that effective
  teachers are those whose students are learning,
  as measured by assessments of student achievement.

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Two cases of performance-based teacher incentive
reforms

• Chiles Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de
  Desempeño de los Establecimientos Educacionales
  (SNED)
• Mexicos Carrera Magisterial (CM)

7
Characteristics of teacher incentive programs
SNED in Chile

• Introduced in 1996
• Group-based incentive, awarded to
  highest-performing schools serving 25 percent of
  enrollment in each region
• School performance is measured by student test
  scores, taking into account absolute scores and
  learning progress, as well as characteristics of
  the student population in each school
• 90 of the SNED bonus is divided among all
  teachers in the winning school
• It represents between 5 and 7 of an annual salary

8
Characteristics of teacher incentive programs CM
in Mexico

• Introduced in 1996
• Group-based incentive, awarded to
  highest-performing schools serving 25 percent of
  enrollment in each region
• School performance is measured by student test
  scores, taking into account absolute scores and
  learning progress, as well as characteristics of
  the student population in each school
• 90 of the SNED bonus is divided among all
  teachers in the winning school
• It represents between 5 and 7 of an annual salary

9
Chile Analysis of teacher pay
Research questions Data used Methods Initial Results
What is the relative level structure of teacher salaries? What is the impact of incentives on teacher quality? What is the impact of the SNED on student achievement? Household survey data ME administrative data National student assessment data (SIMCE) Own surveys of teacher and principals perceptions of performance-based pay OLS regression GLS with school fixed effects Qualitative data analysis Teachers average salaries rose 156 in 1990-2002 Compressed teacher salary structure experience main determinant Quality of entrants into teacher education programs increased Some positive effects of SNED on student performance Strong support for performance-based pay among principals teachers
10
Mexico Carrera Magisterial
Research question Data used Methods Initial Results
Do the CM incentives induce teachers to improve their students test scores? CM administrative data, including student, school and teacher variables Regression discontinuity Differences-in-differences No evidence that teachers improve their outcomes when they face stronger incentives
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Teacher salary structure v. salary structure of
other workers
Salary
Other workers
Teachers
Experience or education
12
Decomposition of teacher pay
Sources Cox (2003) and Urquiola and Vegas (2005)
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Estimated impact on student achievement of SNED
and CM

• Chile SNED
• Preliminary evidence of a cumulative positive
  impact on the student achievement in schools with
  relatively high probabilities of winning the
  award.

• México Carrera Magisterial
• No program impact on teaching quality.
• Teachers who face the greatest incentives (who
  would earn salary increases if their students
  have high test scores) do not tend to have
  students with higher achievement.

14
What factors may explain the relatively weak
impact of performance-based pay teacher incentive
programs?

• In CM, few teachers face a real possibility of
  winning
• The magnitude of the SNED bonus may be too small
  to merit the extra effort
• The incentive may only be weakly related to
  teaching quality and effort
• The political context and especially teachers
  unions play an important role in the design and
  implementation of teacher incentive reforms

15
Improving teaching and learning through effective
incentives What Can We Learn from Education
Reforms in Latin America?
Emiliana Vegas and Ilana Umansky The World Bank