A familiar face: Student-teacher rematches and student achievement

We use administrative data from Indiana to test whether student-teacher rematches in consecutive years affect student achievement. Using models that control for student and teacher fixed effects, we show that studentteacher rematches increase test scores in math and English Language Arts. The positive effects of rematching are constant over elementary and middle-school grades and more pronounced for historically underserved students. Our findings directly support strategies that aim to keep students and teachers together for longer periods of time during K-12 education. They are also consistent with the broader hypothesis that students benefit from increased student-teacher familiarity.