In this project, we use comprehensive, longitudinal data on public school students, teachers, and schools from three “focus states”—Florida, North Carolina, and Washington—to document the evolution of TQGs in these states, examine the extent to which different labor market factors have contributed to these gaps, and identify the highest-leverage interventions for closing these gaps.

Importantly, the data we plan to draw upon cover a minimum of 15 years (in Florida) and up to 30 years (in Washington), allowing us to examine the evolution of TQGs as teachers come and go from schools and the percent of these gaps due to teacher and student sorting across districts, across schools within a district, and across classrooms within a school. We can also perform simulations to determine the extent to which different factors contribute toward the overall magnitude of inequity that is observed. And we can then use this information, combined with extant evidence on the effects of different types of interventions (e.g., the effects of recruitment or retention bonuses on teacher mobility), to simulate the extent to which one or more interventions might work to close such gaps.