Teacher certification and student achievement in Swedish compulsory schools

Christian Andersson and Nina Waldenström ()
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Christian Andersson: Uppsala University, Department of Economics, Postal: P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Nina Waldenström: Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Economics, Postal: P O Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

No 2007:6, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation

Abstract: This study examines how the teaching staff composition with respect to certification affects student achievement in compulsory Swedish schools. The share of non-certified teachers in compulsory schooling has increased dramatically during the last decade, starting a large debate about school quality. We apply an instrumental variable approach to estimate the causal effect of the percentage of non-certified teachers on student achievement. We find, in our preferred specification, that a one percentage point increase in the share of non-certified teachers is expected to decrease the average student’s GPA ranking with about 0.6 units. A substantial effect if one considers the large differences in certification rate that do exist between schools and municipalities. The effect also appears to be stronger for students with highly educated parents

Keywords: Teacher certification; teacher quality; student achievement; instrumental variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
Date: Written 2007-02-20
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