This paper disentangles the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with
special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of …

This paper investigates the effects of California’s billion-dollar class-size-reduction program
on student achievement. It uses year-to-year differences in class size generated by variation …

It has become commonplace to measure teacher quality in terms of teacher value-added.
Operationally, this means evaluating teachers according to the learning gains of students on …

Improving the quality of instruction is a central component to virtually all proposals to raise
school quality. Unfortunately, policy recommendations often ignore existing evidence about …

We examine the effect of air pollution on school absences using administrative data for
elementary and middle school children in 39 of the largest school districts in Texas merged with …

Empirical analysis of peer effects on student achievement has been open to question because
of the difficulties of separating peer effects from other confounding influences. While most …

This paper attempts to reconcile the contradictory findings in the debate over school
resources and school effectiveness by highlighting the role of aggregation in the presence of …

… Steven G. Rivkin is a professor of economics at Amherst College, a research associate
National Bureau of Economic Research and associate director of research for the Texas Schools …

The precise method of attributing differences in classroom achievement to teachers is the
subject of considerable discussion and analysis. We begin by briefly outlining the general …

Much of education policy focuses on improving teacher quality, but most policies lack strong
research support. We use student achievement gains to estimate teacher value-added, our …