Teachers, schools, and academic achievement

Steven G. Rivkin ^[1] ; Eric A. Hanushek ^[2] ; John F. Kain ^[3]
1. [1] Amherst College
  
  Amherst College
  
  Town of Amherst, Estados Unidos
2. [2] Stanford University
  
  Stanford University
  
  Estados Unidos
3. [3] University of Texas at Dallas
  
  University of Texas at Dallas
  
  Estados Unidos
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Localización: Econométrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, ISSN 0012-9682, Vol. 73, Nº 2, 2005, págs. 417-458
Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
- This paper disentangles the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection. Unique matched panel data from the UTD Texas Schools Project permit the identification of teacher quality based on student performance along with the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. Semiparametric lower bound estimates of the variance in teacher quality based entirely on within-school heterogeneity indicate that teachers have powerful effects on reading and mathematics achievement, though little of the variation in teacher quality is explained by observable characteristics such as education or experience. The results suggest that the effects of a costly ten student reduction in class size are smaller than the benefit of moving one standard deviation up the teacher quality distribution, highlighting the importance of teacher effectiveness in the determination of school quality.