Abstract
This research investigates to what extent the subjective teacher’s assessment of children’s ability predicts children’s outcomes in the transition from primary to secondary school in terms of initial track allocation, track switching in the first three years of secondary education and subsequent test scores. We apply micro-data from the Netherlands about cognitive test scores and teacher’s assessment in primary schools and about track placement, track switching and test scores in secondary schools. Our estimates suggest that the subjective teacher’s assessment is about twice as important as the primary school cognitive test scores for initial track placement in secondary school. In addition, the teacher’s assessment is more predictive of track allocation in 9th grade compared to cognitive test scores. Next, children who switch tracks are more likely to be placed in tracks based on test scores. Also, test scores in 9th grade are predicted by the subjective teacher’s assessment, not by test scores in 6th grade.
Highlights
The weight of cognitive test scores in allocating children to different levels of education has increased over time (e.g., Kautz et al 2014)
Track placement and teacher assessment at higher levels of secondary education is different from the test scores, with almost a quarter of the sample being placed in T3 in 7th grade
When we look into the differences between the test score, teacher assessment and track placement in 7th grade, we find that most of the differences we observe are related to gender and social-economic status
Summary
The weight of cognitive test scores in allocating children to different levels of education has increased over time (e.g., Kautz et al 2014). Our empirical analysis benefits from this system because we observe both high-stakes cognitive test scores and teacher assessments at the end of 6th grade and the transition from primary to secondary school during which children are allocated to different (hierarchical) education tracks. Our estimates suggest that the teacher’s assessment is twice as powerful to explain the gap between the lowest and the highest track placement compared to the test score, in both 7th and 9th grade These results suggest that secondary schools put more emphasis on the subjective assessment measure relative to the objective assessment measure when allocating children to tracks in 7th grade. We present additional results and detailed data descriptions in the online appendix to this paper
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