Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chetty, Raj; Friedman, John N.; Rockoff, Jonah E.
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Harvard University; Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.9.2593
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 2593-2632
• 关键词: student-achievement; outcomes; QUALITY

摘要

Are teachers' impacts on students' test scores (value-added) a good measure of their quality? One reason this question has sparked debate is disagreement about whether value-added (VA) measures provide unbiased estimates of teachers' causal impacts on student achievement. We test for bias in VA using previously unobserved parent characteristics and a quasi-experimental design based on changes in teaching staff. Using school district and tax records for more than one million children, we find that VA models which control for a student's prior test scores provide unbiased forecasts of teachers' impacts on student achievement.