Do Funds for More Teachers Improve Student Outcomes?

Abstract

We investigate the effects of a large-scale Norwegian intervention that provided extra teachers to 166 lower secondary schools with relatively high student-teacher ratios and low average grades. We exploit these two margins using a regression discontinuity setup and find that the intervention reduced the student-teacher ratio by around 10%, without crowding out other school resources. The extra funding did not improve test scores and medium-term academic outcomes, and we can reject even small positive effects. We do find that more teachers improved the school environment, including self-reported student well-being, but with the largest impact on aspects of the school environment most weakly associated with better academic outcomes.