Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Division L Section 5 Poster Session

Abstract

This paper makes three contributions to our understanding of how teachers contribute to the educational process. First, we examine the extent to which teachers influence student attendance. Second, we examine the importance of evaluating teachers along multiple objective dimensions by comparing teachers’ effects on student test scores to those on student attendance. Finally, we contribute to the methodological literature on value-added models (VAMs) by testing the robustness of VAM-based estimates of teachers’ effects on student achievement to controlling to student absences. Preliminary results suggest that there is significant variation in classrooms’ effects on student attendance and that these effects differ in practically important ways from corresponding effects on student achievement.

Authors

• Seth Gershenson, American University

• Alison Jacknowitz, American University