Celeste Carruthers

Celeste Carruthers, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, recently received the Jean Flanigan Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Education Finance Association. The award was presented at the annual AEFA conference in Richmond, Virginia, on March 18. Carruthers’ dissertation analyzed the impact of charter schools on teacher movement and student achievement. Carruthers used data from North Carolina to evaluate teachers in terms of credentials and classroom achievement as they moved from traditional public schools to charter schools. She found that teachers moving to charter schools were less experienced and less likely to be certified, on average, than teachers moving between traditional public schools. Among certified teachers, however, charter movers had higher licensure test scores. Classroom achievement was lower, on average, for charter movers than for other teachers, but variance in this measure of teacher quality was wide.

Carruthers earned her Ph.D from the University of Florida in 2009. She joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, last August. She is currently working on two papers based on her dissertation research: “The Qualifications and Classroom Performance of Teachers Moving to Charter Schools,” and “New Schools, New Students, New Teachers: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Charter Schools.”

Recent Publications

Blair, Roger D. and Celeste K. Carruthers, “The Economics of Monopoly Power in Antitrust,” forthcoming in Antitrust Law & Economics, Keith Hylton (Ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing (Northampton, MA).

Carruthers, Celeste K., “Twombly and the Evolution of Telecom Regulation,” Antitrust Bulletin 53(1): 95-116 (2008).

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