Working Paper: NBER ID: w19424
Authors: Raj Chetty; John N. Friedman; Jonah E. Rockoff
Abstract: Are teachers' impacts on students' test scores ("value-added") a good measure of their quality? This question has sparked debate partly because of a lack of evidence on whether high value-added (VA) teachers who raise students' test scores improve students' long-term outcomes. Using school district and tax records for more than one million children, we find that students assigned to high-VA teachers in primary school are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, and are less likely to have children as teenagers. Replacing a teacher whose VA is in the bottom 5% with an average teacher would increase the present value of students' lifetime income by approximately $250,000 per classroom.
Keywords: teacher quality; value-added; student outcomes; long-term impacts
JEL Codes: H0
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| teacher value-added (VA) (A29) | college attendance (I23) |
| teacher value-added (VA) (A29) | annual earnings (J31) |
| teacher value-added (VA) (A29) | teenage births (J13) |
| teacher value-added (VA) (A29) | neighborhood quality (R23) |
| improvement in teacher quality (I21) | college attendance (I23) |
| teacher value-added (VA) (A29) | present value of students' lifetime income (J17) |
| teacher quality (A21) | earnings (J31) |