Beyond the classroom: The effect of student-faculty race matching on student test scores.

This paper estimates the impact of race matched faculty (i.e., any teacher outside of a particular student’s classroom) on student test scores. Using administrative panel data between school years 2008-09 through 2017-18 from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), I estimate that Latino students see positive impacts of race matched faculty. By basing this study in LAUSD, which has a large proportion of Latino students and teachers, I can fill a gap within the literature by examining the effects of race match and faculty race match on Latino students. My findings indicate that matching Latino students to racially congruent teachers and faculty can improve math test scores by 0.020 standard deviations and ELA test score by 0.008 standard deviations. Increasing the supply of Latino teachers may provide as a crucial catalyst in decreasing the achievement gaps found between Latino and white students.