A new study by Professor Jonah Rockoff and colleagues Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard indicates that good elementary school teachers have a positive effect on students in the long-term. The study, which tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years, shows that teachers who raise standardized test scores impact their students beyond the classroom — their students are more likelly to go to college and less likely to be teenage mothers.
About the Researcher(s)
Jonah Rockoff
Jonah E. Rockoff is Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility at the Columbia Graduate School of Business and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Rockoff's interests center on the finance and management of public schools. His most recent research focuses on systems for hiring new teachers, the effects of No Child Left Behind on students and schools, the impact of removing school desegregation orders, and how primary school teachers affect students' outcomes in early adulthood. He received his Ph.D.