Do teachers make better parents? The differential performance of teachers’ children at school

This paper investigates whether teenagers are educationally advantaged if their parents are educators, using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Great Britain and Ireland from 2000. Examining whether teachers’ children do better at tests of reading ability, the results show that children whose fathers teach at third level or whose mothers teach at second level do better. The paper also shows that teenagers are more likely to be helped with their schoolwork if their mothers are educators. The evidence tends to suggest that where teenagers benefit from a parent as a teacher it is through specific assistance from the mother and a more general effect from the father.