Petra Thiemann
Associate senior lecturer
Teacher-to-Classroom Assignment and Student Achievement
Author
Summary, in English
We study the effects of counterfactual teacher-to-classroom assignments on average student achievement in U.S. elementary and middle schools. We use the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) experiment to semiparametrically identify the average reallocation effects (AREs) of such assignments. Our identification strategy exploits the random assignment of teachers to classrooms in MET schools. To account for noncompliance of some students and teachers to the random assignment, we develop and implement a semiparametric instrumental variables estimator. We find that changes in within-district teacher assignments could have appreciable effects on student achievement. Unlike policies that aim at changing the pool of teachers (e.g., teacher tenure policies or class-size reduction measures), alternative teacher-to-classroom assignments do not require that districts hire new teachers or lay off existing ones; they raise student achievement through a more efficient deployment of existing teachers.
Department/s
- Department of Economics
Publishing year
2023
Language
English
Pages
1328-1340
Publication/Series
Journal of Business and Economic Statistics
Volume
41
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
American Statistical Association
Topic
- Economics
Keywords
- Average reallocation effects
- Education production
- Instrumental variables
- Semiparametric methods
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0735-0015