Enlightened
Preparing for Local Labor: Curricular Stratification across Local Economies in the United States
April Sutton
Sociology of Education, April 2017, Pages 172-196
Abstract:
I investigate how the educational demands of local labor markets shape high school course offerings and student course taking. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 linked to the U.S. Census 2000, I focus on local economic variation in the share of jobs that do not demand a bachelor’s degree. I find that schools in local labor markets with higher concentrations of subbaccalaureate jobs devote a larger share of their course offerings to career and technical education (CTE) courses and a smaller share to advanced college-preparatory courses compared to schools in labor markets with lower concentrations of subbaccalaureate jobs, even net of school resources. Students in labor markets with higher concentrations of subbaccalaureate jobs take greater numbers of CTE courses, and higher-achieving students in these labor markets are less likely to take advanced math and Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate courses. These course-taking disparities are largely due to school course offerings. This study shows how local economic inequalities shape high school curricular stratification, and suggests that school curricula linked to the educational demands of local jobs delimits the college preparation opportunities of high-achieving students.
The Demand for Teacher Characteristics in the Market for Child Care: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Casey Boyd-Swan & Chris Herbst
Arizona State University Working Paper, April 2017
Abstract:
Many preschool-age children in the U.S. attend center-based child care programs that are of low quality. This paper examines the extent to which teacher qualifications – widely considered important inputs to classroom quality – are valued by providers during the hiring process. To do so, we administered a resume audit study in which job-seeker characteristics were randomly assigned to a large number of resumes that were submitted in response to real child care job postings in 14 cities. Our results indicate that center-based providers may not hire the most qualified applicants. For example, we find that although providers have a strong preference for individuals with previous work experience in early childhood education (ECE), those with more ECE experience are less likely to receive an interview than those with less experience. We also find that individuals with bachelor's degrees in ECE are no more likely to receive an interview than their counterparts at the associate's level, even in the market for lead preschool-age teachers. Furthermore, those revealing high levels of academic performance, as measured by grade point average, are generally not preferred by child care providers. Finally, it appears that some non-quality attributes do not influence hiring decisions (e.g., signaling car ownership), while others have large effects on teacher hiring (e.g., applicant race/ethnicity). Together, our findings shed light on the complex trade-offs made by center-based providers attempting to offer high-quality programs while earning sufficient revenue to stay in business.
Do Court Mandates Change the Distribution of Taxes and Spending? Evidence from School Finance Litigation
Zachary Liscow
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Little is known about whether court mandates ultimately affect the distribution of taxes and spending or whether legislatures offset the distributional consequences of those court orders with other changes. To offer insight into this question, I use an event-study methodology to show how state revenues and expenditures respond to court orders to increase funding for schools for low-income students. The court orders are financed almost entirely through increases in taxes, and there is little evidence of offsetting behavior by the legislature. State income tax changes are broad-based across the income distribution and do not target tax filers with children. Thus, since the main beneficiaries of the school spending do not pay a disproportionate share of the costs, advocates for school finance reform are effective at transferring resources to poor families. The results suggest that welfare analysis of these legal rules should take into account not only efficiency but also distribution.
Crowded Out? The Effect of Nonresident Enrollment on Resident Access to Public Research Universities
Bradley Curs & Ozan Jaquette
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Public universities have pursued nonresident enrollment growth as a solution to the stagnation of state funding. Representatives of public universities often argue that nonresident tuition revenue is an important resource in efforts to finance access for resident students, whereas state policymakers are concerned that nonresident enrollment reduces opportunities for residents. This study investigated whether nonresident enrollment growth crowded out resident enrollment at public research universities using an instrumental variable identification strategy. For the sample of all public research universities, increased nonresident enrollment did not affect resident enrollment. For prestigious public research universities, nonresident enrollment growth had a negative effect on resident enrollment. The findings suggest that nonresident enrollment growth does not benefit resident access, as suggested by university administrators, nor does it harm resident access, as suggested by state policymakers. However, state policymakers may be concerned that nonresident enrollment crowds out resident access at prestigious public universities.
Navigating the Financial Aid Process: Borrowing Outcomes among First-Generation and Non-First-Generation Students
Fernando Furquim et al.
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2017, Pages 69-91
Abstract:
A growing number and proportion of students rely on student loans to assist with the costs of postsecondary education. Yet little is known about how first-generation students use federal loans to finance their education. In this article, we examine each of the decisions that culminate in student indebtedness: the decision to apply for aid, whether to borrow, and how much to borrow. We find significant differences by generational status at each step of the student borrowing process. First-generation students are more likely to apply for financial aid, borrow, and take out larger loans than their peers, after controlling for a rich set of covariates for costs and financial resources. We find that student characteristics cannot fully explain these observed differences in borrowing outcomes across generations.
The impact of upper-secondary voucher school attendance on student achievement. Swedish evidence using external and internal evaluations
Björn Tyrefors Hinnerich & Jonas Vlachos
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sweden has a school voucher system with universal coverage and full acceptance of corporate providers. Using a value added approach, we find that students at upper-secondary voucher schools on average score 0.06 standard deviations lower on externally graded standardized tests in first year core courses. The negative impact is larger among lower achieving students (but not among immigrant students), the same students who are most prone to attend voucher schools. For high achieving students, the voucher school impact is around zero. Comparing internal and external evaluations of the exact same standardized tests, we find that voucher schools are 0.14 standard deviations more generous than municipal schools in their internal test grading. The greater leniency in test grading is more pronounced among students at academic than at vocational programs. The findings are consistent with voucher schools responding more strongly to differences in educational preferences than municipal schools.
The Educational Benefits of Attending Higher Performing Schools: Evidence From Chicago High Schools
Elaine Allensworth et al.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2017, Pages 175-197
Abstract:
Policymakers are implementing reforms with the assumption that students do better when attending high-achieving schools. In this article, we use longitudinal data from Chicago Public Schools to test that assumption. We find that the effects of attending a higher performing school depend on the school’s performance level. At elite public schools with admission criteria, there are no academic benefits — test scores are not better, grades are lower — but students report better environments. In contrast, forgoing a very low-performing school for a nonselective school with high test scores and graduation rates improves a range of academic and nonacademic outcomes.
Paying for priority in school choice: Capitalization effects of charter school admission zones
Elena Andreyeva & Carlianne Patrick
Journal of Urban Economics, July 2017, Pages 19–32
Abstract:
We exploit a unique characteristic of some charter schools in the metropolitan Atlanta area to identify property value capitalization of access to charter schools. The charter schools in this study designate small geographic areas within their attendance areas as priority zones. Each of the study charter schools has at least two priority zones: households located in priority one zones have a higher probability of admission than households located in priority two zones. We use this spatial variation in the likelihood of attending a charter school to identify the capitalization effect of increased charter school admission probabilities as the difference-in-differences within priority zone one and two border areas. Our results indicate that prices increased by six to eight percent for priority one zone homes compared to priority two zone homes after the opening of a new charter school. We also find that capitalization is stronger for homes with underperforming traditional public schools.
Social Ties in Academia: A Friend is a Treasure
Tommaso Colussi
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper employs a unique dataset on articles, authors and editors of the top general interest journals in economics to investigate the role of social connections in the publication process. Ties between editors and authors are identified based on their academic histories. About 43% of the articles published in these journals are authored by scholars connected to one editor at the time of the publication. PhD students and faculty colleagues of an editor also improve their publication outcomes when this editor is in charge of a journal.
Student sorting and implications for grade inflation
Michael Herron & Zachary Markovich
Rationality and Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is a sizable literature on higher education, both in the United States and beyond, that draws attention to the phenomenon known as grade inflation. We offer an interpretation of grade inflation that turns on the choices students have over academic departments, and we argue that patterns in grades cannot be considered in isolation from the incentives that students have to sort themselves strategically across departments. Our argument draws on a game-theoretic model in which students of varying abilities face a choice between enrolling in a department whose grades are inflated and thus ability-concealing versus enrolling in a department whose grades are ability-revealing. In equilibrium, all grades are high. Nonetheless, what appears to be grade inflation is a result of the fact that the ability-revealing department in our model attracts highly talented students seeking to distinguish themselves from students of lesser ability, who avoid said department because enrolling in it is costly. Our formalization shows how student sorting can confound grades, and it implies that a full understanding of university’s grade distribution requires knowing which departments in the university are ability-concealing and which, in contrast, are ability-revealing.
“When” Students Miss School: The Role of Timing of Absenteeism on Students’ Test Performance
Michael Gottfried & Jacob Kirksey
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Policy and practice have charged forward with emphasizing the necessity to reduce school absenteeism in the fall (i.e., Attendance Awareness Month). However, no empirical basis served to bolster these efforts. This study examined whether fall versus spring absenteeism was linked to spring state exam scores for a sample of elementary students over 3 years. Using district data, the findings suggested spring absences were associated with lower testing performance, with the most critical period being the 30-day window leading up to the test. This study illustrates that most is at stake for student test performance by missing school in the days and months leading up to the test date and that different support systems are needed to address subgroups of students.
Linking Getting to School With Going to School
Michael Gottfried
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners have recently aligned efforts to reduce school absenteeism, particularly during kindergarten when excessive absences are highest out of all elementary grades. Little is known, however, about whether the way in which students get to school might influence if they go to school. To address this gap, this study was the first to address the role of school bus-taking on reducing school absences. Using a national large-scale dataset of children (the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011), the findings suggest that children who took the school bus to kindergarten had fewer absent days over the school year and were less likely to be chronically absent compared with children who commuted to school in any other way. Given that many districts are considering cutting or restricting bus services, this study brings to question whether doing so might limit the resources upon which families rely to ensure their children attend school each day. Implications are discussed.
High Costs, Low Resources, and Missing Information: Explaining Student Borrowing in the For-Profit Sector
Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Rajeev Darolia
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2017, Pages 92-112
Abstract:
This article examines the borrowing behavior of students enrolled in for-profit colleges, asking how and why their borrowing differs relative to students pursuing postsecondary education in other sectors. We employ statistical decompositions to understand the extent to which variation in borrowing across sectors can be attributed to observed characteristics of students and of higher education institutions. Drawing on nationally representative data on undergraduate students, we show that college costs of attendance are the primary observed driver of the large differences in borrowing between students in for-profit institutions and those in other sectors. However, a substantial portion of borrowing differences remains unexplained by these high costs, low student financial resources, and variation in college attendance patterns. Further, there is little evidence that changes in these characteristics can explain the rise in student borrowing in the for-profit sector over time. We discuss how these findings present challenges to regulation of the for-profit sector, and the extent to which policymaking can encourage prudent borrowing and college choice decisions.
Strategic Resource Use for Learning: A Self-Administered Intervention That Guides Self-Reflection on Effective Resource Use Enhances Academic Performance
Patricia Chen et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many educational policies provide learners with more resources (e.g., new learning activities, study materials, or technologies), but less often do they address whether students are using these resources effectively. We hypothesized that making students more self-reflective about how they should approach their learning with the resources available to them would improve their class performance. We designed a novel Strategic Resource Use intervention that students could self-administer online and tested its effects in two cohorts of a college-level introductory statistics class. Before each exam, students randomly assigned to the treatment condition strategized about which academic resources they would use for studying, why each resource would be useful, and how they would use their resources. Students randomly assigned to the treatment condition reported being more self-reflective about their learning throughout the class, used their resources more effectively, and outperformed students in the control condition by an average of one third of a letter grade in the class.
Market Signals: Evidence on the Determinants and Consequences of School Choice From a Citywide Lottery
Steven Glazerman & Dallas Dotter
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
We estimate school-choice preferences revealed by the rank-ordered lists submitted by more than 22,000 applicants to a citywide lottery for more than 200 traditional and charter public schools in Washington, D.C. The results confirm previously reported findings that commuting distance, school demographics, and academic indicators play important roles in school choice and that there is considerable heterogeneity of preferences. Higher and lower income choosers respond to academic quality measures, but respond to different indicators of quality. Simulations suggest segregation by race and income would be reduced and enrollment in high-performing schools increased if policymakers were to relax school capacity constraints in individual campuses. The simulations also suggest that removing the lowest performing schools as choice options could further reduce segregation and increase enrollment in high-performing schools.
Impact of Community College Student Debt Levels on Credit Accumulation
Dominique Baker & William Doyle
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 2017, Pages 132-153
Abstract:
Most community college students do not borrow to pay for their education. However, in recent years more students are borrowing and, when they borrow, accumulating large amounts of debt. To help clarify whether increased debt burdens are aiding community college students or harming them, we explore the impact of borrowing on academic credit hour accumulation. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study 2002–2012, we provide multiple estimates of the impact of borrowing on credit hour attainment among community college students. Standard estimates suggest that community college students who borrow complete fewer credit hours than students who do not borrow, although the influence is relatively small (about two credits two years after enrollment). Instrumental variables estimates suggest that the impact of borrowing on credits attained is not significant two years after enrollment but is substantial eight years after enrollment (allowing students multiple enrollment spells).
Should Millions of Students Take a Gap Year? Large Numbers of Students Start the School Year Above Grade Level
Scott Peters et al.
Gifted Child Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Few topics have garnered more attention in preservice teacher training and educational reform than student diversity and its influence on learning. However, the actual degree of cognitive diversity has yet to be considered regarding instructional implications for advanced learners. We used four data sets (three state-level and one national) from diverse contexts to evaluate how many students perform above grade level in English Language Arts and mathematics. Results revealed that among American elementary and middle school students, 20% to 49% in English Language Arts and 14% to 37% in mathematics scored 1 year or more above grade level. We address what these findings imply for K-12 schools, grouping decisions, and educational policies that strive to foster advanced abilities.
Variable School Start Times and Middle School Student's Sleep Health and Academic Performance
Daniel Lewin et al.
Journal of Adolescent Health, forthcoming
Methods: This cross-sectional study draws data from a county-wide surveillance survey. Participants were three cohorts of eighth graders (n = 26,440). The school district is unique because SST ranged from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m. Path analysis and probit regression were used to analyze associations between SST and self-report measures of weekday sleep duration, grades, and homework controlling for demographic variables (sex, race, and socioeconomic status). The independent contributions of SST and sleep duration to academic performance were also analyzed.
Results: Earlier SST was associated with decreased sleep duration (χ2 = 173, p < .0001) and deficient sleep (≤7 hours) among 45% of students. Students with SST before 7:45 a.m. were at increased risk of decreased sleep duration, academic performance, and academic effort. Path analysis models demonstrated the independent contributions of sleep duration, SST, and variable effects for demographic variables.
Is education really underfunded in resource-rich economies? Evidence from a panel of U.S. states
Alexander James
Resource and Energy Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing development literature has argued that natural-resource endowments “curse” economic prosperity by reducing expenditures on education. According to this theory, public and private agents lack sufficient foresight to make optimal economic decisions and become poor as a result. Using a panel of U.S. state-level data, this paper offers evidence to the contrary. Public spending on education in resource-rich states greatly exceeds that in resource-scarce ones, and private education services are imperfectly crowded out as a result. Analyzing a broader set of public education outcomes reveals that relative teacher salaries, public enrollment rates, and teacher-student ratios tend to move pro-cyclically with resource booms and busts. Weaker evidence is provided that graduation rates fall in response to resource booms, perhaps reflecting a rise in the opportunity cost of going to school for working-age students.
The Effect of School Capital Investments on Local Housing Markets: Evidence from the Interest-Free Construction Bond in California
Jinsub Choi
Georgia State University Working Paper, March 2017
Abstract:
In this paper, I investigate what effect school capital investments have on housing values and household location choice in the context of the Tiebout model. This research identifies an exogenous variation in school capital investments by exploiting the lottery allocation of entitlement to an interest-free construction bond among districts in California. Although the lottery is exogenous, additional non-lottery allocation complicates identification. This paper develops empirical models based on sample selection methods in order to create a counterfactual state in which additional non-lottery allocation would not have existed. I find that receiving the interest-free construction bond increases school capital expenditure and housing values at the district level. I view the increase in housing values as the capitalization of school capital investments. I find little evidence for the effect of the interest-free construction bond on household sorting and student’s academic outcomes.