School Play
The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood
Raj Chetty, John Friedman & Jonah Rockoff
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
Are teachers' impacts on students' test scores ("value-added") a good measure of their quality? This question has sparked debate largely because of disagreement about (1) whether value-added (VA) provides unbiased estimates of teachers' impacts on student achievement and (2) whether high-VA teachers improve students' long-term outcomes. We address these two issues by analyzing school district data from grades 3-8 for 2.5 million children linked to tax records on parent characteristics and adult outcomes. We find no evidence of bias in VA estimates using previously unobserved parent characteristics and a quasi-experimental research design based on changes in teaching staff. Students assigned to high-VA teachers are more likely to attend college, attend higher- ranked colleges, earn higher salaries, live in higher SES neighborhoods, and save more for retirement. They are also less likely to have children as teenagers. Teachers have large impacts in all grades from 4 to 8. On average, a one standard deviation improvment in teacher VA in a single grade raises earnings by about 1% at age 28. Replacing a teacher whose VA is in the bottom 5% with an average teacher would increase students' lifetime income by more than $250,000 for the average classroom in our sample. We conclude that good teachers create substantial economic value and that test score impacts are helpful in identifying such teachers.
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Cracks in the Melting Pot: Immigration, School Choice, and Segregation
Elizabeth Cascio & Ethan Lewis
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether low-skilled immigration to the U.S. has contributed to immigrants' residential isolation by reducing native demand for public schools. We address endogeneity in school demographics using established Mexican settlement patterns in California and use a comparison group to account for immigration's broader effects. We estimate that between 1970 and 2000, the average California school district lost more than 14 non-Hispanic households with children to other districts in its metropolitan area for every 10 additional households enrolling low-English Hispanics in its public schools. By disproportionately isolating children, the native reaction to immigration may have longer-run consequences than previously thought.
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Family Instability, School Context, and the Academic Careers of Adolescents
Shannon Cavanagh & Paula Fomby
Sociology of Education, January 2012, Pages 81-97
Abstract:
An emerging literature suggests that the increasingly complex family histories of American children are linked with multiple domains of adolescent development. Much of this scholarship focuses on associations at the individual level. Here, the authors consider whether key dimensions of the school context, specifically the aggregate level of family instability and the academic press within schools, moderate the link between family instability and young people's course-taking patterns in mathematics in high school. Using the school-based design and the retrospective reports of family structure in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the linked academic transcript data in the Adolescent Health and Achievement Study (n = 6,545), the authors find that students from unstable families do more poorly when they attend schools with a high proportion of academically oriented students. The prevalence of family instability in a school does not moderate the individual experience of family instability in predicting course-taking patterns.
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Who Benefits from Student Aid? The Economic Incidence of Tax-Based Federal Student Aid
Nicholas Turner
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Federal benefit programs, including federal student aid, are designed to aid targeted populations. Behavioral responses to these programs may alter the incidence of their benefits, a possibility that receives less attention in the literature compared to tax incidence. I demonstrate the importance of benefit incidence analysis by showing that the intended cost reductions of tax-based federal student aid are substantially offset by institutional price increases for a sample of 4-year colleges and universities. Contrary to the goal of policymakers, I find that tax-based aid crowds out institutional aid roughly dollar-for-dollar. Unfortunately, it is not clear how institutions utilize these captured resources, so that the ultimate incidence of the programs is uncertain.
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The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?
David Deming, Claudia Goldin & Lawrence Katz
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest growing part of the U.S. higher education sector. For-profit enrollment increased from 0.2 percent to 9.1 percent of total enrollment in degree-granting schools from 1970 to 2009, and for-profit institutions account for the majority of enrollments in non-degree granting postsecondary schools. We describe the schools, students, and programs in the for-profit higher education sector, its phenomenal recent growth, and its relationship to the federal and state governments. Using the 2004 to 2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) longitudinal survey we assess outcomes of a recent cohort of first-time undergraduates who attended for-profits relative to comparable students who attended community colleges or other public or private non-profit institutions. We find that relative to these other institutions, for-profits educate a larger fraction of minority, disadvantaged, and older students, and they have greater success at retaining students in their first year and getting them to complete short programs at the certificate and associate degree levels. But we also find that for-profit students end up with higher unemployment and "idleness" rates and lower earnings six years after entering programs than do comparable students from other schools, and that they have far greater student debt burdens and default rates on their student loans.
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Grade Inflation, Social Background, and Labour Market Matching
Robert Schwager
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
A model is presented where workers of differing abilities and from different social backgrounds are assigned to jobs based on grades received at school. It is examined how this matching is affected if good grades are granted to some low-ability students. Such grade inflation is shown to reduce the aggregate wage of the lower class workers because employers use social origin as a signal for productivity if grades are less than fully informative. Moreover, the high-ability students from the higher class may benefit from grade inflation since this shields them from the competition on the part of able students from the lower classes.
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Where to Attend? Estimating the Effects of Beginning College at a Two-year Institution
Lockwood Reynolds
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two-year colleges are an important part of the higher education system in the United States but there are concerns as to how attendance at these institutions affects educational attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper uses data from a nationally representative survey to examine the impact of students beginning their college career at a two-year college instead of a four-year college. Treatment effects are estimated using both standard regression techniques as well as propensity score matching. As these estimates may be contaminated because of selection on unobservable characteristics this paper will also employ a number of sensitivity analyses to consider the potential bias. The results show large negative impacts on both educational attainment and labor market outcomes for men and women who begin at a two-year college, even for those students who expect to complete a bachelor's degree. The evidence from the sensitivity analyses suggest that to eliminate these large effects there would need to be substantial, and arguably implausible, selection on unobservable characteristics.
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Jason Schnittker & Jere Behrman
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although some point to the large effects of schooling on civic engagement (usually measured in terms of volunteering and participation in civic organizations) and social cohesion (usually measured in terms of social networks and relationship quality), the effects of schooling on social outcomes have not been estimated with the same rigor as the effects of schooling on labor-market outcomes, such as earnings. In particular, previous research has failed to consider (i) the many potential and often unobserved confounding factors ("endowments") influencing both schooling and social outcomes, including family upbringing, innate characteristics, and personality, and (ii) the ways in which schooling pushes individuals in multiple directions simultaneously, including toward greater social engagement, but also toward more independent and market-driven pursuits. Using samples of unrelated persons, ordinary siblings, and identical twins, this study explores the effects of schooling on measures of civic engagement and social relationships, as well as labor-force earnings and labor-force participation. The siblings models reveal a more complex picture than typically suggested by standard individual estimates. On one hand, the results reveal a robust positive effect of schooling on earnings: well-schooled persons work more and earn more, albeit not as much as associations without control for endowments suggest. On the other hand, the results reveal more tenuous and occasionally negative effects of schooling on social outcomes. The effects of schooling on volunteering and membership in civic organizations, for example, disappear almost entirely with control for endowments. Also, within-identical-twins models reverse the positive effects of schooling on reports of support from friends, family, and coworkers. These results may reflect the tension schooling creates between market and non-market commitments, as well as between independence and interpersonal reliability. Schooling may, indeed, induce some pro-social behaviors, but schooling allows individuals choices of whether to pursue more personal interests as well.
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Do High-School Teachers Really Matter?
Kirabo Jackson
NBER Working Paper, January 2012
Abstract:
Unlike in elementary schools, high school teacher effects may be confounded with unobserved track-level treatments (such as the AVID program) that are correlated with individual teachers. I present a strategy that exploits detailed course-taking information to credibly estimate the effects of 9th grade Algebra and English teachers on test scores. I document substantial bias due to track-specific treatments and I show that traditional tests for the existence of teacher effects are flawed. After accounting for bias, I find sizable algebra teacher effects and little evidence of English teacher effects. I find little evidence of teacher spillovers across subjects.
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School Competition and Teacher Labor Markets: Evidence from Charter School Entry in North Carolina
Kirabo Jackson
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
I analyze changes in teacher turnover, hiring, effectiveness, and salaries at traditional public schools after the opening of a nearby charter school. While I find small effects on turnover overall, difficult to staff schools (low-income, high-minority share) hired fewer new teachers and experienced small declines in teacher quality. I also find evidence of a demand side response where schools increased teacher compensation to better retain quality teachers. The results are robust across a variety of alternate specifications to account for non-random charter entry.
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Philip Babcock, Kelly Bedard & Jennifer Schulte
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Much of the debate over the allocation of education resources focuses on the alleged benefits of smallness - of classroom or school - and is based on evidence from small-scale studies. This paper reframes the question in terms of cohort size. Using national data, we find that a 10-percent increase in kindergarten enrollment yields a 0.5 percent increase in cohort shrinkage across early grade transitions, which implies that larger cohorts feature higher rates of retention. Consistent with previous work on class and school size in more restricted settings, this cohort-tracking exercise provides robust evidence at the national level that smallness confers benefits.
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Fraternities and Labor Market Outcomes
Sergey Popov & Dan Bernhardt
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We model how student choices to rush a fraternity, and fraternity admission choices, interact with signals firms receive about student productivities to determine labor-market outcomes. The fraternity and students value wages and fraternity socializing values. We provide sufficient conditions under which, in equilibrium, most members have intermediate abilities: weak students apply, but are rejected unless they have high socializing values, while most able students do not apply to avoid taint from association with weaker members. We show this equilibrium reconciles the ability distribution of fraternity members at the University of Illinois, and estimate the fraternity's welfare impact on different students.
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The Effects of Reducing Tracking in Upper Secondary School: Evidence from a Large-Scale Pilot Scheme
Caroline Hall
Journal of Human Resources, Winter 2012, Pages 237-269
Abstract:
By exploiting an extensive pilot scheme that preceded an educational reform, this paper evaluates the effects of introducing a more comprehensive upper secondary school system in Sweden. The reform reduced the differences between academic and vocational tracks through prolonging and increasing the academic content of the latter. As a result, all vocational students became eligible for university studies. The results suggest that the policy change increased the amount of upper secondary schooling obtained among vocational students, but did not affect enrollment in university studies or students'
earnings later in life.
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Should we transfer resources from college to basic education?
Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo & Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe
Journal of Economics, January 2012, Pages 1-27
Abstract:
We analyze public intervention in two educational levels: basic education and college education. The government decides per capita expenditure at each level and the subsidy for college education. We explore the effect of transferring money from one level to the other on equity and efficiency. We prove the existence of an Equity-Efficiency Frontier (EEF), and analyze which policy reforms are optimal when the society is not at the EEF. For developed countries, this policy consists of transferring resources from college education to basic education.
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An Empirical Investigation of the Option Value of College Enrollment
Kevin Stange
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2012, Pages 49-84
Abstract:
This paper quantifies the option value arising from sequential schooling decisions made in the presence of uncertainty and learning about academic ability. College attendance has option value since enrolled students have the option, but not obligation, to continue in school after learning their aptitude and tastes. I estimate that option value accounts for 14 percent of the total value of the opportunity to attend college for the average high school graduate and is greatest for moderate-aptitude students. Students' ability to make decisions sequentially in response to new information increases welfare and also makes educational outcomes less polarized by background.
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School Context and Educational Outcomes: Results from a Quasi-Experimental Study
Rebecca Casciano & Douglas Massey
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this study we draw on data from a quasi-experimental study to test whether moving into a subsidized housing development in an affluent suburb yields educational benefits to the children of residents, compared to the educations they would have received had they not moved into the development. Results suggest that resident children experienced a significant improvement in school quality compared with a comparison group of students whose parents also had applied for residence. Parents who were residents of the development also displayed higher levels of school involvement compared with the comparison group of nonresident parents, and their children were exposed to significantly lower levels of school disorder and violence within school and spent more time reading outside of school. Living in the development did not influence GPA directly, but it did indirectly increase GPA by increasing the time residents spent reading outside of school.
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John Papay et al.
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
The Boston Teacher Residency is an innovative practice-based preparation program in which candidates work alongside a mentor teacher for a year before becoming a teacher of record in Boston Public Schools. We find that BTR graduates are more racially diverse than other BPS novices, more likely to teach math and science, and more likely to remain teaching in the district through year five. Initially, BTR graduates for whom value-added performance data are available are no more effective at raising student test scores than other novice teachers in English language arts and less effective in math. The effectiveness of BTR graduates in math improves rapidly over time, however, such that by their fourth and fifth years they out-perform veteran teachers. Simulations of the program's overall impact through retention and effectiveness suggest that it is likely to improve student achievement in the district only modestly over the long run.
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Am I missing something? The effects of absence from class on student performance
Wiji Arulampalam, Robin Naylor & Jeremy Smith
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We analyse a rich dataset of Economics students at a UK university to identify causal effects of class absence on student performance, exploiting the random assignment of students and information on students' class timetables to avoid selection problems. We use panel properties of the data to control for unobserved student factors such as ability and effort. Quantile regression results suggest that absence has adverse effects on performance-but these effects are causal only for the upper part of the conditional performance distribution.
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Grade Level and Science Achievement: US Performance in Cross-National Perspective
Benjamin Dalton
Comparative Education Review, February 2012, Pages 125-154
Abstract:
This article examines how international differences in age-grade distributions and grade effects contribute to science scores among 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. As shown in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, countries vary substantially in the grade distribution of 15-year-olds. The costs of being in a grade lower than one's 15-year-old peers are higher in some countries (e.g., Greece and Spain); conversely, the benefits of being in a higher grade are greater in others (e.g., Australia and Luxembourg). Although the United States has relatively greater percentages of 15-year-olds in higher grades, US 15-year-olds receive relatively fewer benefits from higher-grade membership.
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Frank Snyder et al.
Journal of School Health, January 2012, Pages 11-20
Background: School safety and quality affect student learning and success.
This study examined the effects of a comprehensive elementary school-wide social-emotional and character education program, Positive Action, on teacher, parent, and student perceptions of school safety and quality utilizing a matched-pair, cluster-randomized, controlled design. The Positive Action Hawai'i trial included 20 racially/ethnically diverse schools and was conducted from 2002-2003 through 2005-2006.
Methods: School-level archival data, collected by the Hawai'i Department of Education, were used to examine program effects at 1-year post-trial. Teacher, parent, and student data were analyzed to examine indicators of school quality such as student safety and well-being, involvement, and satisfaction, as well as overall school quality. Matched-paired t-tests were used for the primary analysis, and sensitivity analyses included permutation tests and random-intercept growth curve models.
Results: Analyses comparing change from baseline to 1-year post-trial revealed that intervention schools demonstrated significantly improved school quality compared to control schools, with 21%, 13%, and 16% better overall school quality scores as reported by teachers, parents, and students, respectively. Teacher, parent, and student reports on individual school-quality indicators showed improvement in student safety and well-being, involvement, satisfaction, quality student support, focused and sustained action, standards-based learning, professionalism and system capacity, and coordinated team work. Teacher reports also showed an improvement in the responsiveness of the system.
Conclusions: School quality was substantially improved, providing evidence that a school-wide social-emotional and character education program can enhance school quality and facilitate whole-school change.