The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers and Student Outcomes

What are the long-term effects of teacher’s impact on a students test scores and the quality of a person’s life? The debate continues about whether value-added modeling is an effective and unbiased tool for assessing a teacher’s impact on student achievement in the near term as well as for long term outcomes. This study looks at these issues by analyzing data for 2.5 million children, parents, and adult outcomes. The study finds no bias for value-added methodology. They find students assigned to effective teachers are more likely to attend college, attend higher ranked colleges, earn higher salaries, live in higher socio-economic neighborhoods, save more for retirement, and are less likely to have children as teenagers. They conclude that effect teachers, as determined by value added analysis of student test scores, create substantial economic value and test scores are reliable in identifying such teachers.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699