Aligning Student, Parent, and Teacher Incentives: Evidence from Houston Public Schools

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Roland G. Fryer, Jr NBER Working Paper No. 17752 Issued in January 2012 NBER Program(s):   ED   LS  This paper describes an experiment designed to investigate the impact of aligning student, parent, and teacher incentives on student achievement. On outcomes for which incentives were provided, there were large treatment effects. Students in treatment schools mastered more than one standard deviation more math objectives than control students, and their parents attended almost twice as many parent-teacher conferences. In contrast, on related outcomes that were not incentivized (e.g. standardized test scores, parental engagement), we observe both positive and negative effects. We argue that these facts are consistent with a moral hazard model with multiple tasks, though other explanations are possible. This paper is available as PDF (491 K) or via email. An online appendix is available for this publication.