New Technology and Teacher Productivity

I study the effects of a labor-replacing computer technology on the productivity of classroom teachers. In a series of field-experiments, teachers were provided computer-aided instruction (CAI) software for use in their classrooms; CAI provides individualized tutoring and practice to students one-on-one with the computer acting as the teacher. In mathematics, CAI reduces by one-quarter the variance of teacher productivity, as measured by student test score gains. The reduction comes both from improvements for otherwise low-performing teachers, but also losses among high-performers. The change in productivity partly reflects changes in teachers’ decisions about how to allocate class time and teachers’ effort.