Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood

TLDR

The value‑added measure of teacher quality is debated because evidence linking high‑VA teachers to students’ long‑term outcomes is scarce. Students taught by high‑value‑added teachers are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, and have fewer teenage children, and replacing a bottom‑5 % teacher with an average one raises the present value of students’ lifetime income by about $250,000 per classroom. JEL codes: H75, I21, J24, J45.

Abstract

Are teachers' impacts on students' test scores (value-added) a good measure of their quality? This question has sparked debate partly because of a lack of evidence on whether high value-added (VA) teachers improve students' long-term outcomes. Using school district and tax records for more than one million children, we find that students assigned to high-VA teachers are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, and are less likely to have children as teenagers. Replacing a teacher whose VA is in the bottom 5 percent with an average teacher would increase the present value of students' lifetime income by approximately $250,000 per classroom. (JEL H75, I21, J24, J45)