Teacher transfers and the disruption of teacher staffing in the City of Sao Paulo

Abstract

This paper analyzes preferences for certain school attributes among in-service teachers. We explore a centralized matching process in the city of Sao Paulo that teachers must use when transferring schools. Because teachers have to list and rank their preferences for schools, we can estimate the desirability of school attributes using a rank-ordered logit model. We show that distance from the teacher’s home is the strongest predictor of teacher preferences, with school test scores and teacher composition also playing important roles. Furthermore, we document that preferences vary according to teacher characteristics such as gender, race, age, and academic subject.