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ERIC Number: EJ863344
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 35
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1557-3060
EISSN: N/A
Student Sorting and Bias in Value-Added Estimation: Selection on Observables and Unobservables
Rothstein, Jesse
Education Finance and Policy, v4 n4 p537-571 Fall 2009
Nonrandom assignment of students to teachers can bias value-added estimates of teachers' causal effects. Rothstein (2008, 2010) shows that typical value-added models indicate large counterfactual effects of fifth-grade teachers on students' fourth-grade learning, indicating that classroom assignments are far from random. This article quantifies the resulting biases in estimates of fifth-grade teachers' causal effects from several value-added models, under varying assumptions about the assignment process. If assignments are assumed to depend only on observables, the most commonly used specifications are subject to important bias, but other feasible specifications are nearly free of bias. I also consider the case in which assignments depend on unobserved variables. I use the across-classroom variance of observables to calibrate several models of the sorting process. Results indicate that even the best feasible value-added models may be substantially biased, with the magnitude of the bias depending on the amount of information available for use in classroom assignments.
MIT Press. 238 Main Street Suite 500, Cambridge, MA 02142. Tel: 617-253-2889; Fax: 617-577-1545; e-mail: journals-rights@mit.edu; Web site: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/edfp
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Education; Elementary Secondary Education; Grade 5
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
IES Cited: ED544676; ED544345