Strategic Staffing? How Performance Pressures Affect the Distribution of Teachers within Schools and Resulting Student Achievement

Using longitudinal administrative data—including achievement data from untested grades—and teacher survey data from a large urban district, this study examines schools’ responses to those pressures in assigning teachers to high-stakes and low-stakes classrooms. The authors find that teachers with more positive performance measures in both tested and untested classrooms are more likely to be placed in a tested classroom in the following year. In elementary schools, the study shows that such “strategic” teacher assignment disadvantages early grades, concentrating less effective teachers in K–2 classrooms. Reassignment of ineffective upper-grades teachers to early grades systematically results in lower K–2 math and reading achievement gains.