Accounting for Teacher Labor Markets and Student Segregation in Analyses of Teacher Quality Gaps

Studies show that historically underserved students are disproportionately assigned to less qualified and effective teachers, leading to a “teacher quality gap.” Past analyses decompose this gap to determine whether inequitable access is driven by teacher and student sorting across and within schools. These sorting mechanisms have divergent policy implications related to school finance, student desegregation, teacher recruitment, and classroom assignment. I argue that analyses of the teacher quality gap that consider how teachers and students are sorted across labor markets offer additional policy guidance. Using statewide data from Texas, I show that teacher quality gaps are driven by sorting across school districts within the same labor market, but this finding differs depending on how “teacher quality” is defined.