Regulatory arbitrage in teacher hiring and retention: Evidence from Massachusetts Charter Schools

This descriptive study by Jesse Bruhn, Scott Imberman, and Marcus Winters proposes and tests a model for understanding teacher turnover in charter schools. Educators who enter the education labor market through charter schools can gain experience before facing the extra costs associated with higher-paying jobs in traditional public schools. The analyses show that charter schools have more teacher turnover among teachers with low and high value-added scores; the lower-quality teachers stop teaching altogether, and the higher-quality teachers transition to public schools. The findings are consistent with qualitative analyses of teachers in the Boston education market.