Teacher’s Pet

Abstract

This paper shows that teacher beliefs about a child’s absolute academic ability are shaped by the child’s relative classroom rank. Using administrative data on Dutch primary school students, I show that teachers are more likely to recommend students with a high (low) academic rank to the most (least) academically demanding track, independent of actual academic achievement. Higher-ranked students attend more academically prestigious secondary school tracks and are more likely to attend university. These findings are replicated using alternative data and methods. The effect cannot be attributed to differences in children’s non-cognitive skills by rank.