School Choice and Competition for Teachers: Evidence from Michigan

Charter schools and inter-district public school choice are a growing part of the public school system. In theory, competition for students might lead to competition for effective and diverse teaching faculties. This study assesses how competition from school choice relates to the distribution of teacher characteristics across school contexts, exploiting within-school temporal variation in exposure to competition from school choice – both charter schooling and inter-district school choice. I also test whether the relationship between school choice and teacher characteristics differs between charter schools and traditional public schools, or in areas with less restrictive collective bargaining agreements. Using student- and teacher-level data from 2012-13 to 2018-19, I find that growth in choice-based competition was associated with changes in the teacher workforce that were primarily positive (e.g., an increase in teacher experience and the proportion of teachers with at least a master’s degree) and primarily occurring in charter schools, with very little indication of larger systemic effects in the TPS sector.