The Effect of School and Teacher Quality on Student Performance: Using a Natural Experiment from the Middle School Reforms in Beijing

Constructing a rigorous identification strategy based on a unique educational reform involving preference-based random assignment of students to different middle schools in Beijing, this paper examines how school and teacher characteristics affect student academic performance. Results show that school effects matter for the test scores on the High School Entrance Exam. We identify the role of teacher quality, showing that an upgrading of 10% of the teachers to higher rank would increase by 5% to 14% the students’ probability of successfully reaching the minimum required for admission in high school. By contrast, informal degree training is not effective and teachers’ number of years on the job lowers the overall test score, expectedly due to job burnout under considerable parent pressures to perform. We also find that students with weaker academic achievements or socioeconomic backgrounds are more sensitive to the quality of their teachers. New York University, [email protected]. University of California at Berkeley, [email protected], [email protected]