UC Irvine

This paper provides detailed description of students' access to one critical educational resource, teachers that effectively promote learning. Using large scale administrative data from North Carolina in grades 3-8 and value-added measures of effectiveness, I find disadvantages for poor, American Indian, African American, and Hispanic students, but disparities represent less than 2% of observed achievement gaps. Gaps are driven by differential risks of exposure to especially ineffective teachers, which occur between and within schools. The distribution of teacher-related learning opportunities therefore highlights White and higher SES students' advantaged access to important educational resources as well as apparent limits to those advantages.