Teachers & Pupils

The most important question in this field at the moment is: how can we raise average teacher effectiveness? Nothing matters for attainment half as much as this. And more specifically, how can we raise teacher effectiveness in schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods? My work on teachers focusses on these issues: measuring teacher effectiveness. and analysing policies that might increase it.

I also think that pupil motivation, engagement and effort is a crucial theme, though there is less consensus on this in the field. I have shown how much it matters for attainment, and am looking at different sorts of motivation and again whether policy can help.

Scientific Papers

These links are to the Discussion Paper versions of the papers; these are freely available to everyone. Many of the papers are also published in scientific journals but those are often restricted access.

• Motivated to Succeed? Attitudes to Education among Native and Immigrant Pupils in England (2018)
• Evaluation of Teachers’ Pay Reform Technical Appendix (2017)
• Understanding the Response to Financial and Non-Financial Incentives in Education: Field Experimental Evidence Using High-Stakes Assessments (2016)
• Michelle Obama and an English school: the power of inspiration (2016)
• Human Capital and Education: The State of the Art in the Economics of Education (2015) (IZA DP)
• The teacher labour market, teacher turnover and disadvantaged schools: new evidence for England (2012)
• Student effort and educational attainment: Using the England football team to identify the education production function (2011)
• Raising your sights: the impact of friendship networks on educational aspirations (2011)
• School ties: An analysis of homophily in an adolescent friendship network (2011)
• Test Scores, Subjective Assessment and Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities (2009)
• Do teachers matter? Measuring the variation in teacher effectiveness in England (2009)
• The Impact of Classroom Peer Groups on Pupil GCSE Results (2008)
• The Formation of School Peer Groups: Pupils' Transition from Primary to Secondary School in England (2007)
• Modelling the impact of pupil mobility on school differences in educational achievement (2006)
• Evaluating the Impact of Performance-related Pay for Teachers in England (2004)
• The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence (2003)
• The Intricacies of the Relationship Between Pay and Performance for Teachers: Do teachers respond to Performance Related Pay schemes? (2001)

Policy writing

These links are to short (-ish) blog posts written to highlight interesting findings or to comment on education policy.

• Lets put teacher CPD at the heart of school improvement
• Teacher pay – what has been the response to the introduction of performance-related pay? (2017)
• Using behaviour incentives to raise GCSE attainment in poor neighbourhoods: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment (2016)
• Why do we have such high-stakes exams for students? (2015)
• Education Policy in the Election 1: Teachers and teaching (2015)
• Gender, teacher assessment and stereotypes (2015)
•  GCSE Students of England – Focus!! (2014)
• Teacher performance pay without performance pay schemes (2012)
• Novices and Veterans: What new data tells us about teacher turnover and school deprivation (2012)
• Reforming teacher training (2012)
• A Report of Two Halves (2011)
• Who is Aiming High? (2011)
• Response to Education White Paper I: Teachers and teaching (2010)
• Where do star teachers come from? (2010)
• Paying to fail? (2010)