Amine Ouazad looks at the impact of race on pupils' grades in US elementary schools

Amine Ouazad

English

Research Papers in Economics

Teachers in the United States tend to give better 
grades to pupils of their own race, even if these pupils
have the same external test scores as their classmates.
Most teachers are white and, on average, white pupils 
get higher assessments for a given ability level. 
Male teachers too tend to give better grades to male
pupils, yet female teachers do not have significant 
gender-based perceptions.
These are some of the findings of research by Amine
Ouazad on teachers’ assessments in US elementary
schools. The research compares subjective assessments
by teachers and test scores from multiple choice
questionnaires collected by the US Department 
of Education.
The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study is a nationally
representative survey that started with about 20,000
pupils of the 1998/99 kindergarten cohort (children aged
5-6) and was followed up six times later (fall and spring
of kindergarten, fall and spring of grade 1, spring of
grade 3 and spring of grade 5) with assessments in
English and maths.
Pupils are assessed twice each time: by their teachers
and by external assessors of the US Department of
Education. This makes it possible to compare subjective
assessments and test scores covering the same skills.
Using discrepancies between these two forms of
assessments, the research establishes that teachers have
substantial biases.
An African American or Hispanic pupil assessed by a white
teacher is likely to be graded significantly lower than if the
same pupil’s ability were assessed by an African American
or Hispanic teacher. (Minority teachers do not appear to
be biased.) The effects of the biases are sizeable: white
teachers’ biases could explain up to 22% of the gap
between white and minority pupils.
The research also finds that the effects of teachers’
subjective assessments are long lasting, shaping children’s
aspirations, their involvement in the classroom and their
later performance. Ouazad argues that racial interactions
are likely to explain why test score gaps between whites,
African Americans and Hispanics grow between
kindergarten and grade 5 (when children are aged 10-11).
Teachers also rate their pupils’ behaviour and, surprisingly,
this is not the main driving force behind the results. The
study also provides evidence that teachers give better
assessments to pupils of their own race even if they have
in brief...
CentrePiece Spring 2009
12
Assessed by a teacher like me:
the impact of race on pupils’
grades in US elementary schools
The previous article explored systematic
differences in pupils’ test results and teachers’
assessments in the UK. Here, Amine Ouazad looks
at similar questions about possible bias in the
context of US elementary schools.CentrePiece Spring 2009
13
the same test scores and behavioural measures as their
classmates of other races. This shows that there is a racial
bias over and above cognitive and behavioural differences.
Historically, before desegregation and the civil rights
movement, African American pupils were more likely to
be taught by a same-race teacher than nowadays. The
fraction of minority teachers has fallen since then. Whites
are now much more likely than African Americans and
Hispanics to be taught by a teacher of the same race since
a fair representation of minority teachers would require at
least tripling the number of Hispanic and African
American teachers. 
Trends are different for the two groups. The fraction of
African American teachers has declined significantly since
the 1950s: one reason is that teaching is no longer one of
the best options for college-educated African Americans.
But the number of Hispanic teachers has never been high:
the growth of the country’s Hispanic population is a
relatively recent phenomenon, which has not been
followed by a comparable growth in the number of
Hispanic teachers.
Tripling the number of minority teachers would require
more than tripling the number of recruited minority
teachers. Strong political will is needed, Ouazad argues:
so-called teacher ‘competency’ tests strongly correlate
with race, even though these tests are inaccurate
predictors of teaching quality.
Policy-makers should look for tests that recruit good
teachers without unduly favouring any particular race.
Such tests are hard to design. Quota systems are not a
viable solution since they were ruled out in a 1978
decision of the US Supreme Court (Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke).
What then is the way forward? We do not live in a world
where racial and gender perceptions are carved in stone:
experiments in psychology suggest that beliefs about race
and performance can be changed. Ouazad concludes that
policy-makers and designers of teacher training
programmes should put more emphasis on diversity so
that racial perceptions of pupils’ performance become a
thing of the past.
The article summarises ‘Assessed by 
a Teacher Like Me: Race, Gender, and
Subjective Evaluations’ by Amine Ouazad,
CEE Discussion Paper No. 98
(http://cee.lse.ac.uk/cee%20dps/ceedp98.pdf).
Amine Ouazad is assistant professor of
economics at INSEAD and a research associate
in CEP’s education and skills programme.
Teachers in the United
States tend to give
better grades to pupils
of their own race
Policy-makers
and designers
of teacher
training
programmes
should put
more 
emphasis on
diversity

In Brief: Assessed by a teacher like me

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp282.pdf

In Brief: Assessed by a teacher like me

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