TY  - JOUR
AU  - Clotfelter,Charles T.
AU  - Ladd,Helen F.
AU  - Vigdor,Jacob L.
TI  - Teacher-Student Matching and the Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11936
PY  - 2006
Y2  - January 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11936
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11936.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Charles T. Clotfelter
Sanford Institute of Public Policy
Box 90245 Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919/613-7361
E-Mail: charles.clotfelter@duke.edu

Helen Ladd
Sanford School of Public Policy
Box 90245  Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919-613-7352
Fax: 919-681-8288
E-Mail: hladd@duke.edu

Jacob L. Vigdor
Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919/613-9226
Fax: 919/681-8288
E-Mail: jacob.vigdor@duke.edu
AB  - We use administrative data on North Carolina public schools to document the tendency for more highly qualified teachers to be matched with more advantaged students, and we measure the bias this pattern generates in estimates of the impacts of various teacher qualifications on student achievement. One of the strategies we use to minimize this bias is to restrict the analysis to schools that assign students to classrooms in a manner statistically indistinguishable from random assignment. Using data for 5th grade, we consistently find significant returns to teacher experience in both math and reading and to licensure test scores in math achievement. We also find that the returns in math are greater for socioeconomically advantaged students, a finding that may help explain why the observed form of teacher-student matching persists in equilibrium.
ER  -