EDUCATION POLICY AND TEACHER EFFORT

The authors analyze the effect of school, student, and teacher charact eristics on teacher effort, as measured by homework frequency and time put in at home. Although teacher autonomy and ''professionalism'' hav e little effect on effort, teachers' academic backgrounds matter. Teac hers who are assigned higher-achieving students also put in more effor t, a response to student ability as well as a consequence of staffing such classes with harder-working instructors.