This paper examines reasons why personnel policy and wage setting differ between traditional public, private, and charter schools and the effects of these policies on academic measures of teacher quality. Survey and administrative data suggest that the regulatory freedom, small size of wage-setting units, and a competitive market environment make pay and personnel practices more market and performance-based in private and charter schools as compared to traditional public schools. These practices, in turn, permit charter and private schools to recruit teachers with better academic credentials as compared to traditional public schools. The primary sources of data in this paper is the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a representative national survey of schools, districts, principals and teachers conducted regularly by the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education. An appendix is included. (Contains 2 figures, 9 tables and 8 footnotes.)