Scholastic aptitude
Choice, Information, and Constrained Options: School Transfers in a Stratified Educational System
Peter Rich & Jennifer Jennings
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well known that family socioeconomic background influences childhood access to opportunities. Educational reforms that introduce new information about school quality may lead to increased inequality if families with more resources are better able to respond. However, these policies can also level the playing field for choice by equalizing disadvantaged families’ access to information. This study assesses how a novel accountability system affected family enrollment decisions in the Chicago Public Schools by introducing new test performance information and consequences. We show that a substantial proportion of families responded by transferring out when their child’s school was assigned “probation.” Poor families transferred children to other schools in the district, but at a lower rate than non-poor families, who were also more likely to leave for another district or enroll in private school. Most striking, we show that despite family response to the probation label, access to higher-performing schools changed very little under the new policy; students who left probation schools were the most likely of all transfer students to enroll in other low-performing schools in the district. Although new information changed families’ behavior, it did not address contextual and resource-dependent factors that constrain the educational decisions of poor families.
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The Distributional Consequences of Public School Choice
Christopher Avery & Parag Pathak
NBER Working Paper, September 2015
Abstract:
School choice systems aspire to delink residential location and school assignments by allowing children to apply to schools outside of their neighborhood. However, the introduction of choice programs affect incentives to live in certain neighborhoods, which may undermine the goals of choice programs. We investigate this possibility by developing a model of public school and residential choice. We consider two variants, one with an exogenous outside option and one endogenizing the outside option by considering interactions between two adjacent towns. In both cases, school choice rules narrow the range between the highest and lowest quality schools compared to neighborhood assignment rules, and these changes in school quality are capitalized into equilibrium housing prices. This compressed distribution generates incentives for both the highest and lowest types to move out of cities with school choice, typically producing worse outcomes for low types than neighborhood assignment rules. Paradoxically, even when choice results in improvement in the worst performing schools, the lowest type residents may not benefit.
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School Segregation in the Era of Accountability
Tomeka Davis, Rachana Bhatt & Kelsey Schwarz
Social Currents, September 2015, Pages 239-259
Abstract:
Although a great deal of research has examined the impact of accountability on a number of different outcomes, particularly achievement, little research to date has assessed the impact of school accountability reform on racial segregation in schools. Using school, district, and state-level data from the Common Core of Data from 1987 to 2010 and data on school accountability from other sources, we examine black-white within-district segregation before and after the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002. We find that NCLB was associated with significant increases in black-white segregation within school districts, even after controlling for other factors that might have led to increased segregation (e.g., release from court-ordered segregation, recent Supreme Court decisions). This effect was especially pronounced among districts in states that had implemented school accountability policies prior to NCLB. Our results lead us to conclude that policymakers must also consider the negative unintended consequences of education reform policies, even those designed to have an ameliorative impact on inequality.
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State Merit Aid Programs and College Major: A Focus on STEM
David Sjoquist & John Winters
Journal of Labor Economics, October 2015, Pages 973-1006
Abstract:
Since 1991 more than two dozen states have adopted merit-based student financial aid programs, intended at least in part to increase the stock of human capital by improving the knowledge and skills of the state’s workforce. At the same time, there has been growing concern that the United States is producing too few college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Using microdata from the American Community Survey, this paper examines whether recently adopted state merit aid programs have affected college major decisions, with a focus on STEM fields. We find consistent evidence that state merit programs did in fact reduce the likelihood that a young person in the state will earn a STEM degree.
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Investing in Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, and Student Achievement
Paco Martorell, Kevin Stange & Isaac McFarlin
NBER Working Paper, September 2015
Abstract:
Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether it actually changes the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement. We study the achievement effects of nearly 1,400 capital campaigns initiated and financed by local school districts, comparing districts where school capital bonds were either narrowly approved or defeated by district voters. Overall, we find little evidence that school capital campaigns improve student achievement. Our event-study analyses focusing on students that attend targeted schools and therefore exposed to major campus renovations also generate very precise zero estimates of achievement effects. Thus, locally financed school capital campaigns – the predominant method through which facility investments are made – may represent a limited tool for realizing substantial gains in student achievement or closing achievement gaps.
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Licensure and Worker Quality: A Comparison of Alternative Routes to Teaching
Tim Sass
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2015, Pages 1-35
Abstract:
In this paper I use a rich longitudinal database from Florida to compare the characteristics of alternatively certified teachers with their traditionally prepared colleagues. I analyze the relative effectiveness of teachers who enter the profession through different pathways by estimating value-added models of student achievement. In general, alternatively certified teachers have stronger preservice qualifications than graduates of traditional university-based teacher preparation programs do, with the least restrictive alternative route attracting the most qualified prospective teachers. Teachers who enter through the path requiring no coursework have a substantially larger effect on student achievement. In contrast, the alternative pathway that requires substantial occupation-specific human capital investment yields teachers who are less effective than either traditional-route teachers or teachers who entered the profession through other alternative pathways. These results suggest that any benefits from preservice training are overwhelmed by the adverse selection into programs that require nontransferable human capital investments.
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Caroline Hoxby & George Bulman
NBER Working Paper, September 2015
Abstract:
The federal tax deduction for tuition potentially increases investments in postsecondary education at minimal administrative cost. We assess whether it actually does this using regression discontinuity methods on the income cutoffs that govern eligibility for the deduction. Although many eligible households take nearly the maximum deduction allowed, we find no evidence that it affects attending college (at all), attending full- versus part-time, attending four- versus two-year college, the resources experienced in college, the amount paid for college, or student loans. Our analysis suggests that the deduction's inefficacy may be due to issues of salience, timing, and the method of receipt. We argue that the deduction might increase college-going if it were modified in simple ways that would not increase costs but would make it more likely to relax liquidity constraints and be perceived as a price change (which it is) as opposed to an income change. We outline how such modifications could be tested. This study has independent applied econometrics interest because households who would be just above a cut-off manage their incomes so that they fall slightly below it. This income management generates bias due to reverse causality, and we explore how to choose "doughnut-holes" that avoid bias without undue loss of statistical power.
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The Impact of Publicly Provided Early Childhood Education Programs on District-Level Test Scores
Benjamin Artz & David Welsch
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
While the existing literature largely finds that standardized test scores are positively associated with participation in pre-kindergarten programs at the student level, there is little research on the policy effect of publicly providing these programs to entire school districts. We attempt to partially fill this void by examining the effect that publicly provided pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs have on fourth grade student achievement in math and reading at the district level. The models utilize panel data from districts in Wisconsin along with fixed effects estimations. We find that once time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity of a district is accounted for, preschool programs have small but significant impacts on a cohort's future math scores, particularly in less-educated communities. Additionally, there is no evidence that preschool or full-day kindergarten has an impact on future reading scores at the district level.
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Leaving school in an economic downturn and self-esteem across early and middle adulthood
Johanna Catherine Maclean & Terrence Hill
Labour Economics, December 2015, Pages 1–12
Abstract:
In this study, we test whether leaving school in an economic downturn impacts self-esteem across early and middle adulthood. Self-esteem is of interest to economists because it is an established determinant of important socioeconomic outcomes such as wages, crime, marriage, health, and civic engagement. Previous research suggests that leaving school in a downturn can depress career trajectories, and social psychological theory predicts that career success is an important determinant of self-esteem. We model responses to a standard measure of self-esteem (the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale) as a function of the state unemployment rate at school-leaving. We address the potential endogeneity of time and location of school-leaving with instrumental variables. Our results suggest that leaving school in an economic downturn can undermine self-esteem over time.
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Guido Schwerdt, Martin West & Marcus Winters
NBER Working Paper, August 2015
Abstract:
Many American states require that students lacking basic reading proficiency after third grade be retained and remediated. We exploit a discontinuity in the probability of retention under Floridas test-based promotion policy to study the causal effect of retention on student outcomes over time. Although OLS estimates suggest negative effects on achievement, regression discontinuity estimates indicate large positive achievement effects and reduced retention probabilities in future years. After six years, the achievement gains from retention fade out entirely when retained students are compared to their same-age peers, but remain substantial when compared to peers in the same grade. Contrary to prior research based on observational data, we find that early grade retention has no effect on the probability that students graduate from high school.
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Effects of Classroom Ventilation Rate and Temperature on Students’ Test Scores
Ulla Haverinen-Shaughnessy & Richard Shaughnessy
PLoS ONE, August 2015
Abstract:
Using a multilevel approach, we estimated the effects of classroom ventilation rate and temperature on academic achievement. The analysis is based on measurement data from a 70 elementary school district (140 fifth grade classrooms) from Southwestern United States, and student level data (N = 3109) on socioeconomic variables and standardized test scores. There was a statistically significant association between ventilation rates and mathematics scores, and it was stronger when the six classrooms with high ventilation rates that were indicated as outliers were filtered (> 7.1 l/s per person). The association remained significant when prior year test scores were included in the model, resulting in less unexplained variability. Students’ mean mathematics scores (average 2286 points) were increased by up to eleven points (0.5%) per each liter per second per person increase in ventilation rate within the range of 0.9–7.1 l/s per person (estimated effect size 74 points). There was an additional increase of 12–13 points per each 1°C decrease in temperature within the observed range of 20–25°C (estimated effect size 67 points). Effects of similar magnitude but higher variability were observed for reading and science scores. In conclusion, maintaining adequate ventilation and thermal comfort in classrooms could significantly improve academic achievement of students.
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Performance Standards and Employee Effort: Evidence from Teacher Absences
Seth Gershenson
American University Working Paper, July 2015
Abstract:
The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) increased accountability pressure in U.S. public schools by threatening to impose sanctions on Title-1 schools that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in consecutive years. Difference-in-difference estimates of the effect of failing AYP in the first year of NCLB on teacher effort in the subsequent year suggest that on average, teacher absences in North Carolina fell by about 10% and the probability of being absent 15 or more times fell by about 20%. Reductions in teacher absences were driven by within-teacher increases in effort.
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Jan Piek et al.
Human Movement Science, October 2015, Pages 155–163
Abstract:
Animal Fun was designed to enhance motor and social development in young children. Its efficacy in improving motor skills was presented previously using a randomised controlled trial and a multivariate nested cohort design. Based on the Environmental Stress Hypothesis, it was argued that the program would also result in positive mental health outcomes, investigated in the current study. Pre-intervention scores were recorded for 511 children aged 4.83–6.17 years (M = 5.42, SD = .30). Intervention and control groups were compared 6 months following intervention, and again in their first school year. Changes in teacher-rated prosocial behaviour and total difficulties were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and data analysed using Generalised Linear Mixed Models. There was a significant improvement in prosocial behaviour of children in the intervention group six months after initial testing, which remained at 18-month follow-up. Total difficulties decreased at 6 months for the intervention group, with no change at 18 months. This effect was present only for the hyperactivity/inattention subscale. The only significant change for the control group was an increase in hyperactivity/inattention scores from pre-intervention to 18-month follow-up. The Animal Fun program appears to be effective in improving social and behavioural outcomes.
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Making Summer Matter: The Impact of Youth Employment on Academic Performance
Amy Ellen Schwartz, Jacob Leos-Urbel & Matthew Wiswall
NBER Working Paper, August 2015
Abstract:
Holding a summer job is a rite of passage in American adolescence, a first rung towards adulthood and self-sufficiency. Summer youth employment has the potential to benefit high school students’ educational outcomes and employment trajectories, especially for low-income youth. This paper examines New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP provides jobs to youth ages 14-24, and due to high demand for summer jobs, allocates slots through a random lottery system. We match student-level data from the SYEP program with educational records from the NYC Department of Education, and use the random lottery to estimate the effects of SYEP participation on a number of academic outcomes, including test taking and performance. We find that SYEP participation has positive impacts on student academic outcomes, and these effects are particularly large for students who participate in SYEP multiple times. These findings suggest substantial heterogeneity in program effects, and an important avenue for policy makers to target the program to those who might benefit from it the most.