ILRie

Evan Riehl Disparate Impacts of Teacher Certification Exams Abstract: We use Texas administrative data to assess the long-standing claim that teacher certification exams discriminate against underrepresented minority (URM) candidates. In a regression discontinuity design, we find that failing a certification exam delays entry into teaching and costs the average candidate $10,000 in forgone earnings. These costs fall disproportionately on URM candidates both because they are more likely to fail and because their earnings losses from failing are 50 percent larger on average. To examine whether these disparities are justified by racial/ethnic differences in teaching quality, we develop a new measure of disparate impact and estimate it using a policy change that increased the difficulty of Texas' elementary certification exam. The harder exam reduced the URM share of new teachers but had no significant benefits for teaching quality or student achievement. Taken together, our findings show that certification exams have a disparate impact in the sense that they impose much larger economic costs on URM teaching candidates than on white candidates with similar potential teaching quality.

Meet with labor unions, law firms, and organizations dedicated to worker rights to learn about summer internship and full-time opportunities. NEW this year: Engage in informal chats with ILR alumni to explore careers in the labor movement, hear directly about the work, and build meaningful connections.

Ben Scuderi

Mary Ann Bronson

Join the Department of Global Labor and Work at the ILR School for a conversation with Professor Bill Gould on “Those Who Travail: A Labor Lawyer’s Reflections on Race, Unions and the Changing World of Work.” Drawing from his books Those Who Travail and Are Heavy Laden: Memoir of a Labor Lawyer and Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor, Gould will share insights from his career in labor law and mediation. Afterward, enjoy a Q&A, book signing, and refreshments. Books will be available for purchase from Buffalo Street Books. This event is geared toward an in-person audience, so we strongly prefer you join us on our Ithaca campus. If this is not possible, please register to join us on Zoom. Part of the ILR School's 2026 Union Days. Speaker: Bill Gould Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Stanford Law School

Girum Adebe