Teacher Effectiveness in Remote Instruction

Abstract The effect of remote learning on student performance has been a frequent topic of research and discussion in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little is known about the impact of remote instruction on the performance of teachers. This study documents how relative effectiveness of teachers changed when moving from in-person to remote instruction and analyzes the characteristics of teachers associated with greater relative effectiveness during remote instruction. Using matched student/teacher-level data from three large metro-Atlanta school districts, we estimate teacher value-added models to measure the association between teacher characteristics and a teacher's relative contribution to test score growth before and during the period of virtual instruction in the 2020-21 school year. We find evidence of increased variation in overall teacher effectiveness during remote instruction, driven largely by changes in the relative performance of early elementary (K-2) and middle school teachers. Veteran teachers appear relatively more effective in virtual instruction than their less-experienced peers, with lessexperienced teachers performing relatively worse regardless of in-person teaching ability. Finally, we find that the very best in-person teachers are more likely to experience large declines in relative effectiveness when shifting to remote instruction compared to a baseline period with in-person instruction