Jeffrey Miron
Many public schools face persistent teacher vacancies. Lacking fully certified candidates, they often hire uncertified teachers instead.
Evidence from Texas shows that expanding certification to for-profit teacher training programs
reduced schools’ reliance on uncertified teachers. … [T]he lower-cost training routes [also] brought new types of certified teachers into the profession.
Teachers from for-profit programs
were of lower quality than standard-trained teachers as measured by turnover rates and … the average increase in their students’ standardized test scores … [But] they were significantly better on both metrics than uncertified teachers.
Also,
the main effect of the policy for teachers was to reduce the time and cost of training[,] … [suggesting] that the reduction in teacher training requirements was a net positive for public education in Texas.
Yet again, fewer government rules lead to more efficient outcomes.
Cross-posted from Substack.