Equality Over Time? Cumulative Impacts of Exposures to Effective Teachers

• In Event: 34.071 - Educational Opportunities and Culture Across Time and Space

Abstract

This paper considers the cumulative impacts of assignments to more and less effective teachers in elementary and middle school. Using administrative data from North Carolina and value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness and Marginal Structural Models with Inverse Probability of Treatment weighting, I find impacts of assignment to more effective teachers in grades 4-7 on grade 8 achievement. But the year-to-year correlation in teacher effectiveness is nearly zero, meaning that the advantages of an effective teacher in one year are often offset in the next. This inconsistent exposure over time to an important source learning opportunities is one plausible explanation for relatively equalizing influences of schooling on inequality, particularly for “residual” achievement disparities within economic and racial groups.

Author

• Paul Hanselman, The University of Texas - Austin