Disparate Impacts of Teacher Certification Exams.

Autor/inn/en	Deneault, Christa; Riehl, Evan; Zou, Jian
Institution	National Bureau of Economic Research
Titel	Disparate Impacts of Teacher Certification Exams.
Quelle	Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research (2026) PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	NBER working paper series. w34860
Beigaben	Illustrationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monografie; Graue Literatur
DOI	10.3386/w34860
Schlagwörter	Bildungsniveau; Lehrer; Diskriminierung; Qualifikation; Arbeitspapier; Ethnische Gruppe; Texas; USA
Abstract	We use Texas administrative data to assess the long-standing claim that teacher certification exams discriminate against underrepresented minority (URM) candidates. In a regression discontinuity design, we find that failing a certification exam delays entry into teaching and costs the average candidate $10,000 in forgone earnings. These costs fall disproportionately on URM candidates both because they are more likely to fail and because their earnings losses from failing are 50 percent larger on average. To examine whether these disparities are justified by racial/ethnic differences in teaching quality, we develop a new measure of disparate impact and estimate it using a policy change that increased the difficulty of Texas' elementary certification exam. The harder exam reduced the URM share of new teachers but had no significant benefits for teaching quality or student achievement. Taken together, our findings show that certification exams have a disparate impact in the sense that they impose much larger economic costs on URM teaching candidates than on white candidates with similar potential teaching quality.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2026/3