%0 Journal Article
%T Do School Learning Opportunities Compound or Compensate for Background Inequalities? Evidence from the Case of Assignment to Effective Teachers
%A Paul Hanselman
%J Sociology of Education
%@ 1939-8573
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0038040718761127
%X Are equal educational opportunities sufficient to narrow long-standing economic and racial inequalities in achievement? In this article, I test the hypothesis that poor and minority students benefit less from effective elementary school teachers than do their nonpoor and white peers, thus exacerbating inequalities. I use administrative data from public elementary schools in North Carolina to calculate value-added measures of teachers¡¯ success in promoting learning, and I assess benefits for different students. Results suggest that differential benefits of effective teachers uniquely exacerbate black¨Cwhite inequalities but do not contribute to economic achievement gaps. Racial differences are small, on average, relative to the benefits for all groups; are not explained by differences in prior achievement; and are largest for low-achieving students. Teacher-related learning opportunities are crucial for all students, but these results point to a disconnect between typical school learning opportunities and low-achieving minority students
%K achievement gaps
%K opportunities to learn
%K racial and economic inequality
%K teacher effectiveness
%K value-added models
%K heterogeneous effects
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038040718761127