Teacher motivation and student learning

Teachers’ motivation is likely to be a relevant factor affecting students’ learning. We exploit the fact that motivated teachers are typically those who have chosen to be in a given school, while teachers just waiting to move to another school may be rather demoti- vated. We link this dimension of teacher motivation – as measured by the share of teachers who asked to leave their current school – to students’ learning – as measured by their scores in reading and math standardized tests in a national examination. We find that the share of teachers applying for a transfer to another school negatively affects students’ achievements.