Teacher Expectations Matter
利用两位教师对同一学生的期望差异，研究发现十年级教师期望对学生大学完成率有显著影响，弹性为0.12，且教师普遍过度乐观，但白人教师对黑人学生更准确，而准确性可能不利于乐观回报或缩小差距。
We show that tenth-grade teacher expectations affect students' likelihood of college completion. Our approach leverages a unique feature of a nationally representative dataset: two teachers provided their educational expectations for each student. Identification exploits teacher disagreements about the same student, an idea we formalize using a measurement error model. We estimate an elasticity of college completion with respect to teachers' expectations of 0.12. On average, teachers are overly optimistic, though white teachers are less so with black students. More accurate beliefs are counterproductive if there are returns to optimism or sociodemographic gaps in optimism. We find evidence of both.