The Impact Of School Socioeconomic Status On Student-Generated Teacher Ratings

Abstract

This paper uses ordinary least squares, logit and probit regressions, along with chi-square analysis applied to nationwide data from the New Zealand ratemyteacher website to establish if there is any correlation between student ratings of their teachers and the socioeconomic status of the school the students attend.  The results show that students from mid socioeconomic status schools score their teachers significantly higher than students from other socioeconomic status schools. This has implications for the national measurement of teacher performance, as well as implications for individual teachers working in different socioeconomic status schools.