IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v42y2024i2p305-318.html

Making the grade: The effect of teacher grading standards on student outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Seth Gershenson
  • Stephen B. Holt
  • Adam Tyner

Abstract

One mechanism by which teachers might affect student learning is through the grading standards they set for their classrooms. However, the effects of grading standards on student outcomes are understudied. Using administrative data that links individual students and teachers in Algebra I classrooms from 2006 to 2016, we examine the effects of teachers' grading standards on student learning and attendance. High teacher grading standards increase both contemporaneous student achievement in Algebra I and performance in subsequent math classes. Heterogeneity analyses find that these impacts are positive and similar in size for students of different backgrounds, aptitudes, and school contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Seth Gershenson & Stephen B. Holt & Adam Tyner, 2024. "Making the grade: The effect of teacher grading standards on student outcomes," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 305-318, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:305-318
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.12637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12637
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.12637?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harris, Douglas N. & Sass, Tim R., 2011. "Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 798-812, August.
    2. Papay, John P. & Kraft, Matthew A., 2015. "Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 105-119.
    3. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren & David P. Sims, 2010. "The Persistence of Teacher-Induced Learning," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(4), pages 915-943.
    4. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    5. Jeffrey T. Denning & Eric R. Eide & Kevin J. Mumford & Richard W. Patterson & Merrill Warnick, 2022. "Why Have College Completion Rates Increased?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 1-29, July.
    6. Nick Feltovich & Richmond Harbaugh & Ted To, 2002. "Too Cool for School? Signalling and Countersignalling," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 630-649, Winter.
    7. Seth Gershenson & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2016. "Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 11(2), pages 125-149, Spring.
    8. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2020. "Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2777-2826.
    9. Becker, William E. & Rosen, Sherwin, 1992. "The learning effect of assessment and evaluation in high school," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 107-118, June.
    10. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2593-2632, September.
    11. Lillard, Dean R. & DeCicca, Philip P., 2001. "Higher standards, more dropouts? Evidence within and across time," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 459-473, October.
    12. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Seth Gershenson & Kyung Min Kang, 2020. "Teacher Expectations Matter," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 234-251, May.
    13. Matthew A. Kraft, 2019. "Teacher Effects on Complex Cognitive Skills and Social-Emotional Competencies," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 54(1), pages 1-36.
    14. Wiswall, Matthew, 2013. "The dynamics of teacher quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 61-78.
    15. Tyner, Adam & Gershenson, Seth, 2020. "Conceptualizing Grade Inflation," IZA Discussion Papers 13291, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Lydia Mechtenberg, 2009. "Cheap Talk in the Classroom: How Biased Grading at School Explains Gender Differences in Achievements, Career Choices and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1431-1459.
    17. Figlio, David N. & Lucas, Maurice E., 2004. "Do high grading standards affect student performance?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1815-1834, August.
    18. Jing Liu & Susanna Loeb, 2021. "Engaging Teachers: Measuring the Impact of Teachers on Student Attendance in Secondary School," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 343-379.
    19. Mariesa A. Herrmann & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2012. "Worker Absence and Productivity: Evidence from Teaching," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 749-782.
    20. Tyner, Adam & Gershenson, Seth, 2020. "Conceptualizing grade inflation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    21. Betts, Julian R. & Grogger, Jeff, 2003. "The impact of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry-level earnings," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 343-352, August.
    22. Thomas S. Dee & Brian A. Jacob, 2006. "Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or Labor Market Performance?," NBER Working Papers 12199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Terrier, Camille, 2020. "Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    24. Pope, Nolan G., 2019. "The effect of teacher ratings on teacher performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 84-110.
    25. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "Identifying and Producing Effective Teachers," IZA Discussion Papers 14096, IZA Network @ LISER.
    2. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    3. Campbell, Romaine A. & Gershenson, Seth & Lindsay, Constance A. & Papageorge, Nicholas W. & Rendon, Jessica H., 2024. "On-the-Job Learning: How Peers and Experience Drive Productivity Among Teachers," IZA Discussion Papers 17576, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Nguyen, Nhu & Ost, Ben & Qureshi, Javaeria A., 2025. "OK Boomer: Generational differences in teacher quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    5. Jose Maria Cabrera & Dinand Webbink, 2020. "Do Higher Salaries Yield Better Teachers and Better Student Outcomes?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(4), pages 1222-1257.
    6. Dhushyanth Raju, 2017. "Public School Teacher Management in Sri Lanka," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 18(1), pages 39-63, March.
    7. Jalava, Nina & Joensen, Juanna Schrøter & Pellas, Elin, 2015. "Grades and rank: Impacts of non-financial incentives on test performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 161-196.
    8. Dinand Webbink & José María Cabrera, 2016. "Do higher salaries yield better teachers and better student outcomes?," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1604, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    9. Liebowitz, David D., 2021. "Teacher evaluation for accountability and growth: Should policy treat them as complements or substitutes?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Hayes, Michael S. & Liu, Jing & Gershenson, Seth, 2023. "Who refers whom? The effects of teacher characteristics on disciplinary office referrals," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Stacy, Brian, 2014. "Ranking Teachers when Teacher Value-Added is Heterogeneous Across Students," EconStor Preprints 104743, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Liu, Jing & Lee, Monica & Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "The short- and long-run impacts of secondary school absences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    13. Cook, Jason B. & Mansfield, Richard K., 2016. "Task-specific experience and task-specific talent: Decomposing the productivity of high school teachers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 51-72.
    14. Michael Dinerstein & Isaac M. Opper, 2022. "Screening with Multitasking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9869, CESifo.
    15. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.
    16. repec:osf:socarx:y6wh4_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Figlio, David N. & Lucas, Maurice E., 2004. "Do high grading standards affect student performance?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1815-1834, August.
    18. Gershenson, Seth & Lindsay, Constance A. & Papageorge, Nicholas W. & Campbell, Romaine A. & Rendon, Jessica H., 2023. "Spillover Effects of Black Teachers on White Teachers' Racial Competency: Mixed Methods Evidence from North Carolina," IZA Discussion Papers 16258, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Wedel, Katharina, 2021. "Instruction time and student achievement: The moderating role of teacher qualifications," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    20. Marc Steeg & Sander Gerritsen, 2016. "Teacher Evaluations and Pupil Achievement Gains: Evidence from Classroom Observations," De Economist, Springer, vol. 164(4), pages 419-443, December.
    21. Johnston, Andrew C., 2021. "Preferences, Selection, and the Structure of Teacher Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 14831, IZA Network @ LISER.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:305-318. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.