Access to Effective Teachers and Economic and Racial Disparities in Opportunities to Learn.

Abstract

This paper provides detailed description of students' access to one critical educational resource, teachers that effectively promote learning. Using large scale administrative data from North Carolina in grades 3-8 and value-added measures of effectiveness, I find disadvantages for poor, American Indian, African American, and Hispanic students, but disparities represent less than 2% of observed achievement gaps. Gaps are driven by differential risks of exposure to especially ineffective teachers, which occur between and within schools. The distribution of teacher-related learning opportunities therefore highlights White and higher SES students' advantaged access to important educational resources as well as apparent limits to those advantages.