What Do Test Scores Miss? The Importance of Teacher Effects on Non–Test Score Outcomes

Abstract

for insightful comments. I also thank Kara Bonneau from the NCERDC and Shayna Silverstein. This research was supported by funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Long-Term Impacts of Alternative Approaches to Increase Schooling: Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia

“…It will be important to understand how programs such as these can be designed in a way such that they also fully benefit female recipients. Second, our findings are consistent with research by Jackson (2018), which suggests that the school-based production of cognitive skills may not necessarily go handin-hand with improvements in socioemotional outcomes. However, research on how to purposefully foster socioemotional skill in school settings is only in its infancy, D R A F T especially in developing countries (see West et al 2016).…”

The Hidden Costs of Teacher Turnover

“…Moreover, an exclusive reliance on student test scores for measuring teacher quality may be too narrow given our goal of determining how teacher turnover affects the quality of the school's teaching environment. Although value-added measures do predict student long-term success (Chetty et al, 2014), they still miss teacher contributions to the many non-test score outcomes that also contribute to longterm success (Jackson, 2018). 1 For the purpose of this study, we focus on the composition of teachers in a school where teachers are characterized by four types of credentials: years of teaching experience, training (alternative certification or provisional license vs. traditional preservice training), licensure test scores, and whether or not they are teaching the subject in which they are certified.…”

Advisor Value-Added and Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomly Assigned College Advisors

“…Prior studies have largely examined the extent to which VA measures are biased and whether teacher VA predicts students' subsequent outcomes (see Staiger and Rockoff, 2010;Jackson, Rockoff and Staiger, 2014;Koedel, Mihaly and Rockoff, 2015 for recent literature reviews). In particular, recent evidence highlights the importance of school teachers in improving students' adult outcomes Rockoff, 2014a and2014b;Jackson, 2018). We complement this literature by assessing the impact of advisor -instead of teacher or school-quality, and by estimating VA at the postsecondary level.…”