Do School Learning Opportunities Compound or Compensate for Background Inequalities? Evidence from the Case of...

Are equal educational opportunities sufficient to narrow long-standing economic and racial inequalities in achievement? In this paper, I test the hypothesis that poor and minority students benefit less from effective elementary school teachers than their non-poor 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 assess benefits for different students. Results suggest that differential benefits of effective teachers uniquely exacerbate Black-White inequalities while not contributing to economic achievement gaps. Racial differences are small relative to the benefits for all groups on average, not explained by differences in prior achievement, and largest for low-achieving students. While teacher-related learning opportunities at school are crucial for all students, these differences point to a relative disconnect between typical school learning opportunities and low-achieving minority students.