Working Paper: NBER ID: w17722
Authors: C. Kirabo Jackson
Abstract: Unlike in elementary school, high-school teacher effects may be confounded with both selection to tracks and unobserved track-level treatments. I document sizable confounding track effects, and show that traditional tests for the existence of teacher effects are likely biased. After accounting for these biases, high-school algebra and English teachers have much smaller test-score effects than found in previous studies. Moreover, unlike in elementary school, value-added estimates are weak predictors of teachers' future performance. Results indicate that either (a) teachers are less influential in high school than in elementary school, or (b) test scores are a poor metric to measure teacher quality at the high-school level.
Keywords: teacher quality; high school; value-added; educational policy
JEL Codes: I21; J00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| High school teacher quality (I21) | Algebra test scores (C12) |
| High school teacher quality (I21) | English test scores (C12) |
| Good 9th-grade teacher (A21) | Current algebra test scores (C12) |
| Good 9th-grade teacher (A21) | Current English test scores (C12) |
| Selection to tracks (C52) | Teacher effects (A21) |
| Track-level treatments (C32) | Teacher effects (A21) |