TY - JOUR T1 - How Does School Accountability Affect Teachers? JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 76 LP - 118 DO - 10.3368/jhr.55.1.1015.7438R1 VL - 55 IS - 1 AU - Rebecca Dizon-Ross Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/55/1/76.abstract N2 - Does holding schools accountable for student performance cause good teachers to leave low-performing schools? Using data from New York City, which assigns accountability grades to schools on the basis of student achievement, I perform a regression discontinuity analysis and find evidence of the opposite effect. At the bottom end of the school grade distribution, lower accountability grades decrease teacher turnover and increase joining teachers’ quality. A likely channel is that accountability pressures increase principal effort at lower-graded schools, which teachers value. In contrast, at the top end of the school grade distribution, low accountability grades may negatively impact joining teachers’ quality. ER -