Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Mar, 2005, Volume 73, Issue 2

Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0262.2005.00584.x
p. 417-458

Steven G. Rivkin, Eric A. Hanushek, John F. Kain

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.


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Supplemental Material

Variable Definitions, Data, and Programs for 'Teachers, Students, and Academic Achievement'

This supplement to the paper, "Teachers, Schools and Academic Achievement," provides corrections to tables in the original papers along with added technical details to the data, variable definitions and estimation.  That paper has two major empirical sections: estimation of the variance in teacher quality and estimation of more traditional education production functions.  Both rely upon administrative data for students and teachers from the Texas Education Agency.  The microdata are currently aggregate data on school outcomes used in the estimation of the variance in teacher quality are available through this site.  In addition to a description of the data and variables, this supplement also includes all of the STATA do-files used for data construction and estimation.

Variable Definitions, Data, and Programs for 'Teachers, Students, and Academic Achievement'

Programs and data.

Variable Definitions, Data, and Programs for 'Teachers, Students, and Academic Achievement'

This supplement to the paper, "Teachers, Schools and Academic Achievement," provides corrections to tables in the original papers along with added technical details to the data, variable definitions and estimation.  That paper has two major empirical sections: estimation of the variance in teacher quality and estimation of more traditional education production functions.  Both rely upon administrative data for students and teachers from the Texas Education Agency.  The microdata are currently aggregate data on school outcomes used in the estimation of the variance in teacher quality are available through this site.  In addition to a description of the data and variables, this supplement also includes all of the STATA do-files used for data construction and estimation.

Variable Definitions, Data, and Programs for 'Teachers, Students, and Academic Achievement'

Programs and data.

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