Teacher Quality and Within-Family Spillovers in Academic Achievement

Javaeria A. Qureshi, University of Illinois at Chicago

Several studies have estimated the intergenerational effects of parents’ education on child schooling and learning. Other family members, especially older siblings, can also play a role in a child’s development and learning. This paper estimates the effect of older siblings’ human capital on the learning of younger siblings as measured by reading and math test scores using administrative data from public schools in North Carolina. I compare the outcomes of students whose older siblings are assigned to teachers of different quality – measured by estimates of their “value-added” – after controlling for a rich set of student characteristics. Preliminary findings suggest that students’ test scores improve significantly when their older siblings are assigned to teachers with higher value-added.