Comparing teacher and external assessments: Are boys, immigrants, and poorer students undergraded?

In this paper, we study the presence of systematic differences between teacher non-blind assessments and external blindly graded standardized tests as a measure of grading misalignment. Using a large administrative database covering two student cohorts (N = 31, 183 pupils) from publicly-funded schools in the Basque Country (Spain), we explore the grading gaps found between these two type of assessments for several student characteristics using fixed effects modeling. We find that, after controlling for standardized achievement, systematic teachers’ under-assessment exists for student groups that, on average, lag behind in school: boys, children from an immigrant background, and low SES students. The observed data patterns withstand several robustness checks, including the use of instrumental variables approach (IV) and other alternative regression specifications. •We explore differences between teacher and standardized external grades as measure of grading misalignment.• Used administrative data from the Basque Country (Spain), with information of 31,000+ students.• Boys, immigrants, and lower SES students receive lower teacher scores, after controlling for external achievement.• Results are robust to use of IV, the expansion of the set of controls, and the use of alternative regression specifications.