We empirically test how l2th-grade students of teachers with probationary certification, emergency certification, private school certification, or no certification in their subject area compare relative to students of teachers who have standard certification in their subject area. We also determine whether specific state-by-state differences in teacher licensure requirements systematically affect student achievement. In mathematics, we find teachers who have a standard certification have a statistically significant positive impact on student test scores relative to teachers who either hold private school certification or are not certified in their subject area. Contrary to conventional wisdom, mathematics and science students who have teachers with emergency credentials do no worse than students whose teachers have standard teaching credentials.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Wisconsin Press and The Board of Regents of the University of WisconsinSystem are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Human Resources. ABSTRACTUsing data drawn from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, which allows students to be linked to particular teachers and classes, we estimate the impact of observable and unobservable schooling characteristics on student outcomes. A variety of models show some schooling resources (in particular, teacher qualifications) to be significant in influencing tenth-grade mathematics test scores. Unobservable school, teacher, and class characteristics are important in explaining student achievement but do not appear to be correlated with observable variables in our sample. Thus, our results suggest that the omission of unobservables does not cause biased estimates in standard educational production functions.

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