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Who should be recruited to fill the two to three million K–12 teaching positions projected to come open during the next decade? What kinds of knowledge and training should these new recruits have? These are the questions confronting policymakers as a generation of teachers retires at the same time that the so-called baby boom echo is making its way through the education system. Key to answering these questions is knowing how much influence teachers have over student achievement and what specific teacher attributes lead to higher student achievement. For instance, does holding a master’s degree make one a better teacher? Do the best teachers hail from elite universities? Did they earn high GPAs in college? Did they major in the subject they are teaching? How much does experience matter? Do traditional, university-based teacher-preparation programs produce the best teachers, or are alternatively certified teachers just as good?

These questions are particularly relevant given that researchers have raised concerns about the overall quality of today’s teaching workforce. As measured by standardized test scores (mainly the SAT and the ACT), students choosing to major in education tend to be drawn from the lower end of the ability distribution. In Who Will Teach?, Harvard University professor of education Richard Murnane and his colleagues write:“College graduates with high test scores are less likely to take [teaching] jobs, employed teachers with high test scores are less likely to stay, and former teachers with high test scores are less likely to return.” On average, according to the findings of University of Massachusetts economist …