Measuring systematic gaps in teacher judgement: A new approach

Oliver Cassagneau-Francis, Lindsey Macmillan, Richard Murphy and Gill Wyness

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: We propose a new approach to test for systematic biases in teacher evaluations. We exploit a setting where teachers were required to assign students both grades and rankings within each grade. Comparing students immediately adjacent to grade boundaries, we apply a local randomization approach to estimate imbalance in student characteristics. Our findings reveal systematic bias favoring higher income and female students. These grading decisions carry real consequences: students just above the grade threshold are significantly more likely to attend university. Our approach can be applied whenever there is a system with many thresholdsvand subjective rankings.

Keywords: teacher bias; gender; stereotypes; proportions; test optional (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-13
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