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ERIC Number: ED565852
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Mar
Pages: 41
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Teacher Quality at the High-School Level: The Importance of Accounting for Tracks. Working Paper 17722. Revised
Jackson, C. Kirabo
National Bureau of Economic Research
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. Appended are: (1) Distribution of number of teachers in each school-track year cell, (2) Distribution of student observations by the distribution of number of teachers in each school-track cell with the implied required degree of freedom adjustment; (3) Distribution of the number of classes per teacher and per teacher year; (4) Dispersion of teacher effects (estimated without track fixed effects) across and within tracks. Also included are: Appendix Note 1: Matching Teachers to Students; Appendix Note 2: Deriving the Degree of Freedom Adjustment for the Size of Tracks; Appendix Note 3: Is the Lack of an Effect for English Teachers Due to Measurement Error?; Appendix Note 4: Estimating Efficient Teacher Fixed Effects; and Appendix Note 5: Evidence of Student Sorting to Teachers.
National Bureau of Economic Research. 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398. Tel: 617-588-0343; Web site: http://www.nber.org
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative; Numerical/Quantitative Data
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education; Elementary Education; Middle Schools; Junior High Schools; Grade 9; Grade 7; Grade 8
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research
Identifiers - Location: North Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
IES Cited: ED544205