Fixed Effect Estimates of Student-Teacher Racial or Ethnic Matching in U.S. Elementary Schools

We used student fixed effects and statistical controls to investigate whether U.S. elementary students (N = 18,170) displayed greater academic achievement, social-emotional behavior, or executive functioning and were more likely to receive gifted or special education services when taught by teachers of the same race or ethnicity. We observed mostly null effects for student-teacher racial or ethnic matching across the study's 12 dependent measures in analyses adjusting for Type 1 error. For the full sample, matching resulted in lower science achievement (effect size [ES] = -.03 SD). For Black students, matching resulted in fewer internalizing problem behaviors (ES = 0.18 SD). We observed null effects for Hispanic students. Robustness checks including those stratified by race or ethnicity and biological sex or by prior levels of low or high level of achievement, behavior, or executive functioning largely supported the study's null findings. Exceptions were that matching resulted in fewer externalizing problem behaviors (ES = 0.22 SD) for Black girls and lower academic achievement (ES range = -0.04 to -0.14 SD) and fewer externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (ES range = 0.24 to 0.33 SD) for students who had previously displayed low levels of academic, behavioral, or executive functioning. Collectively, the analyses provide limited support for student-teacher racial or ethnic matching as a school-based policy to address educational disparities in U.S. elementary schools.