The impact of teacher turnover on student performance: evidence from Portugal

Abstract

Teacher turnover is a much-discussed topic in education policy debates. Never theless, there is no study measuring its impact on student achievement for the Portuguese context, characterized by a rigid and centralized teacher allocation model. We estimate the causal effect of teacher turnover on 6th grade students’ exam scores and find a small, yet statistically significant, negative effect that is particularly harmful for female students with lower previous achievement, and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. We also find that schools in socially disadvantaged contexts are the ones where teacher turnover has a stronger nega tive impact on students’ results. No differences were detected for students who had the same teacher in the 5th and 6th grades and those who had not, suggest ing organizational disruption as a main driver of the negative effects of teacher turnover