-
Cullen, Julie B., Brian A. Jacob and Steven Levitt (2006).
The Effect of School Choice on Participants: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries.
In: Econometrica
74(5)
, 1191-1230
.
Abstract.
Link.
School choice has become an increasingly prominent strategy for urban school districts seeking to enhance academic achievement. Evaluating the impact of such programs is complicated by the fact that a highly select sample of students takes advantage of these programs. To overcome this difficulty, we exploit randomized lotteries that determine high school admission in the Chicago Public Schools. Surprisingly, we find little evidence that attending sought after programs provides any benefit on a wide variety of traditional academic measures, including standardized test scores, attendance rates, course-taking, and credit accumulation. This is true despite the fact that those students who win the lotteries attend better high schools along a number of dimensions, including higher peer achievement levels, higher peer graduation rates, and lower levels of poverty. We do, however, uncover evidence that attendance at such schools may improve a subset of non-traditional outcome measures, such as self-reported disciplinary incidences and arrest rates. [close]
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Costrell, Robert M. (1994).
A Simple Model of Educational Standards.
In: American Economic Review
84(4)
, 956-971
.
Abstract.
Link.
The author models standards for educational credentials, such as high-school diplomas. Standard-setters maximize their conception of social welfare, knowing that utility-maximizing students choose whether to meet the standard. The author shows that more egalitarian policymakers set lower standards, the median voter would prefer higher standards (under symmetric distributions), and decentralization lowers standards (among identical communities). Optimal standards do not necessarily fall with increased student preference for leisure, deterioration of nonstudent inputs to education, or increased student heterogeneity. Superseding binary credentials by perfect information increases average achievement and social welfare for plausible degrees of heterogeneity, egalitarianism, and pooling under decentralization. [close]
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Epple, Dennis and Richard E. Romano (1998).
Competition Between Private and Public Schools, Vouchers, and Peer-Group Effects.
In: American Economic Review
88(1)
, 33-62
.
Abstract.
Link.
A theoretical and computational model with tax-financed, tuition-free public schools and competitive, tuition-financed private schools is developed. Students differ by ability and income. Achievement depends on own ability and on peers' abilities. Equilibrium has a strict hierarchy of school qualities and two-dimensional student sorting with stratification by ability and income. In private schools, high-ability, low-income students receive tuition discounts, while low-ability, high-income students pay tuition premia. Tuition vouchers increase the relative size of the private sector and the extent of student sorting and benefit high-ability students relative to low-ability students. [close]
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Betts, Julian R. (1998).
The Impact of Educational Standards on the Level and Distribution of Earnings.
In: American Economic Review
88(1)
, 266-275
.
Abstract.
Link.
The goal of this paper is to present the following finding: an egalitarian policy maker might prefer higher standards than would a policy maker whose goal was to maximize the sum of earnings. The result is based on the observation that if workers are differentiated with respect to ability, an increase in educational standards will increase the earnings of both the most-able and the least-able workers. The only workers whose earnings fall are those workers who after the increase fail to continue meeting the standard. [close]
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West, Martin R. and Ludger Woessmann (2010).
‘Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School’: Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary School Competition and Student Achievement across Countries.
In: Economic Journal
120(546)
, F229-F255
.
Abstract.
Link.
Nineteenth-century Catholic doctrine strongly opposed state schooling. We show that countries with larger shares of Catholics in 1900 (but without a Catholic state religion) tend to have larger shares of privately operated schools even today. We use this historical pattern as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of contemporary private competition on student achievement in cross-country student-level analyses. Our results show that larger shares of privately operated schools lead to better student achievement in mathematics, science and reading, and to lower total education spending, even after controlling for current Catholic shares. [close]
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Lavy, Victor (2002).
Evaluating the Effect of Teachers' Group Performance Incentives on Pupil Achievement.
In: Journal of Political Economy
110(6)
, 1286-1317
.
Abstract.
Link.
Proposals to use teachers' performance incentives have recently attracted considerable attention. However, there is very little experience with applying incentives in schools. This paper provides evidence on the causal effects of two programs: the first provided the school and its teachers with monetary performance incentives and the second with additional conventional resources. The assignment of schools to the two programs was not random; therefore, identification is a central issue in the empirical analysis. The empirical results suggest that schools' and teachers' group monetary incentives caused significant gains in many dimensions of students' outcomes. Endowing schools with more resources also led to improvement in student performance. However, the comparison based on cost equivalency suggests that the teachers' incentive intervention is much more cost effective. [close]
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Rouse, Cecilia Elena (1998).
Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.
In: Quarterly Journal of Economics
113(2)
, 533-602
.
Abstract.
Link.
In 1990 Wisconsin began providing vouchers to a small number of low-income students to attend nonsectarian private schools. Controlling for individual fixed-effects, I compare the test scores of students selected to attend a participating private school with those of unsuccessful applicants and other students from the Milwaukee public schools. I find that students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program had faster math score gains than, but similar reading score gains to, the comparison groups. The results appear robust to data imputations and sample attrition, although these deficiencies of the data should be kept in mind when interpreting the results. [close]
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Glomm, Gerhard and B. Ravikumar (1992).
Public Versus Private Investment in Human Capital: Endogenous Growth and Income Inequality.
In: Journal of Political Economy
100(4)
, 818-834
.
Abstract.
Link.
In this paper, the authors present an overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents in which human capital investment through formal schooling is the engine of growth. The authors use simple functional forms for preferences, technologies, and income distribution to highlight the distinction between economies with public education and those with private education. The authors find that income inequality declines more quickly under public education. On the other hand, private education yields greater per capita incomes unless the initial income inequality is sufficiently high. The authors also find that societies will choose public education if a majority of agents have incomes below average. [close]
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Neal, Derek A. (1997).
The Effects of Catholic Secondary Schooling on Secondary Achievement.
In: Journal of Labor Economics
15(1)
, 98-123
.
Abstract.
Link.
This article examines the effect of Catholic secondary schooling on high school graduation rates, college graduation rates, and future wages. The article introduces new measures of access to Catholic schools that serve as potential instruments for Catholic school attendance. Catholic secondary schools are geographically concentrated in urban areas, and Catholic schooling does increase educational attainment significantly among urban minorities. The gains from Catholic schooling are modest for urban whites and negligible for suburban students. Related analyses suggest that urban minorities benefit greatly from access to Catholic schooling primarily because the public schools available to them are quite poor. [close]
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Nechyba, Thomas J. (2000).
Mobility, Targeting, and Private-School Vouchers.
In: American Economic Review
90(1)
, 130-146
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper uses general-equilibrium simulations to explore the role of residential mobility in shaping the impact of different private-school voucher policies. The simulations are derived from a three-district model of low-, middle-, and high-income school districts (calibrated to New York data) with housing stocks that vary within and across districts. In this model, it is demonstrated that school-district targeted vouchers are similar in their impact to non targeted vouchers but vastly different from vouchers targeted to low-income households. Furthermore, strong migration effects are shown to significantly improve the likely equity consequences of voucher programs. [close]
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Howell, William G. and Paul E. Peterson (2002).
The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools.
Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
The Education Gap is the first book to gather a significant body of data on vouchers in multiple locations, and it reveals startling new evidence that voucher programs benefit African-American students more than participants from other ethnic groups. To explain this phenomenon, the authors point out that residential selection is the most common form of school choice available in American public education today. Since this process is likely to leave African Americans in the worst public schools, new forms of choice directed toward low-income families are most likely to benefit black students. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2005).
The Effect Heterogeneity of Central Exams: Evidence from TIMSS, TIMSS-Repeat and PISA.
In: Education Economics
13(2)
, 143-169
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper uses extensive student-level micro databases of three international student achievement tests to estimate heterogeneity in the effect of external exit examinations on student performance along three dimensions. First, quantile regressions show that the effect tends to increase with student ability-but it does not differ substantially for most measured family-background characteristics. Second, central examinations have complementary effects to school autonomy. Third, the effect of central exit examinations increases during the course of secondary education, and regular standardised examination exerts additional positive effects. Thus, there is substantial heterogeneity in the central-examination effect along student, school and time dimensions. [close]
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Glewwe, Paul and Karthik Muralidharan (2016).
Improving Education Outcomes in Developing Countries: Evidence, Knowledge Gaps, and Policy Implications.
In: Eric A. Hanushek, Steven Machin, Ludger Woessmann.
Handbook of the Economics of Education, Vol. 5.
Amsterdam:
.
Abstract.
Link.
Improvements in empirical research standards for credible identification of the causal impact of education policies on education outcomes have led to a significant increase in the body of evidence available on improving education outcomes in developing countries. This chapter aims to synthesize this evidence, interpret their results, and discuss the reasons why some interventions appear to be effective and others do not, with the ultimate goal of drawing implications for both research and policy. Interpreting the evidence for generalizable lessons is challenging because of variation across contexts, duration and quality of studies, and the details of specific interventions studied. Nevertheless, some broad patterns do emerge. Demand-side interventions that increase the immediate returns to (or reduce household costs of) school enrollment, or that increase students’ returns to effort, are broadly effective at increasing time in school and learning outcomes, but vary considerably in cost-effectiveness. Many expensive “standard” school inputs are often not very effective at improving outcomes, though some specific inputs (which are often less expensive) are. Interventions that focus on improved pedagogy (especially supplemental instruction to children lagging behind grade level competencies) are particularly effective, and so are interventions that improve school governance and teacher accountability. Our broad policy message is that the evidence points to several promising ways in which the efficiency of education spending in developing countries can be improved by pivoting public expenditure from less cost-effective to more cost-effective ways of achieving the same objectives. We conclude by documenting areas where more research is needed, and offer suggestions on the public goods and standards needed to make it easier for decentralized and uncoordinated research studies to be compared across contexts. [close]
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Peterson, Paul E. and Martin R. West (eds.) (2003).
No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability.
Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act is the most important legislation in American education since the 1960s. The law requires states to put into place a set of standards together with a comprehensive testing plan designed to ensure these standards are met. Students at schools that fail to meet those standards may leave for other schools, and schools not progressing adequately become subject to reorganization. The significance of the law lies less with federal dollar contributions than with the direction it gives to federal, state, and local school spending. It helps codify the movement toward common standards and school accountability. Yet NCLB will not transform American schools overnight. The first scholarly assessment of the new legislation, No Child Left Behind? breaks new ground in the ongoing debate over accountability. Contributors examine the law’s origins, the political and social forces that gave it shape, the potential issues that will surface with its implementation, and finally, the law’s likely consequences for American education. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2008).
Efficiency and Equity of European Education and Training Policies.
In: International Tax and Public Finance
15(2)
, 199-230
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper reviews empirical evidence, especially from Europe, on how education and training policies can be designed to advance both efficiency and equity. Returns to educational investments tend to decrease over the life cycle. Moreover, they seem to be highest for children from disadvantaged families at early stages and for the well-off at late stages of the life cycle. This creates complementarities between efficiency and equity at early stages and trade-offs at late stages. The paper goes on to discuss specific policies for efficiency and equity at each educational stage, ranging from early childhood education and schools over vocational and higher education to training and lifelong learning. The available evidence suggests that both efficiency and equity can be enhanced by output-oriented reforms properly designed to each stage, where the state generally sets a regulatory framework that ensures accountability and funding and uses the forces of choice and competition to deliver best results. Designed this way, education and training systems can advance efficiency and equity at the same time. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2002).
Schooling and the Quality of Human Capital.
Berlin:
Springer
.
Abstract.
Link.
This book presents a thorough economic analysis of both the determinants and the consequences of international differences in schooling quality. It is shown that cross-country differences in quality-adjusted human capital can account for a substantial part of the international variation in economic development. However, large increases in per-student spending over recent decades were not matched by increases in student achievement in most countries. In a simple principal-agent model, the book stresses the importance of institutional features of the schooling system such as central examinations, school autonomy, and private-sector competition. Microeconometric estimations based on data for more than a quarter of a million students reveal that international differences in these institutions, rather than differences in resources, can explain the large international differences in schooling quality. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger, Elke Lüdemann, Gabriela Schütz and Martin R. West (2009).
School Accountability, Autonomy and Choice around the World.
Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar
.
Abstract.
Link.
Accountability, autonomy, and choice are now the watchwords of education reformers around the globe. This book provides new evidence from the international PISA test on whether students perform better in school systems with such institutional measures in place. It also provides a theoretical framework for considering such reforms and summarizes previous international evidence. The results confirm that various policies promoting accountability, autonomy, and choice are strongly associated with higher achievement for students from both disadvantaged and advantaged backgrounds. In particular, choice through public funding for private schools is associated with both higher performance overall and higher equality of opportunity. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2004).
Institutional Comparisons in Educational Production.
In: CESifo DICE Report Journal for Institutional Comparisons
2(4)
, 03-06
.
Abstract.
Link.
Education is a fundamental determinant of individuals’ and societies’ economic performance. This gives vital importance to the question of how high educational performance can be achieved. Economists like to think about the process which generates educational performance as a production process. This is not a disregard of humanistic views of the specific value of each human being. Instead, with all esteem for the dignity of each individual, thinking in terms of educational production can help to understand, and hopefully ultimately improve, how education systems work and how student learning might be furthered. Thus, think of how the “output” of the education process – students’ learning achievement – is “produced” by several “inputs” in the education process – e.g., the students’ family background, class sizes and teacher characteristics. [close]
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Ladd, Helen F. (2002).
School Vouchers: A Critical View.
In: Journal of Economic Perspectives
16(4)
, 25-44
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper marshals available evidence from both the U.S. and other countries on the effects of private schools, peer effects, and competition to demonstrate that that any gains in overall student achievement from a large scale voucher program are at best likely to be small. Moreover, given the tendency of parents to judge schools in part by the characteristics of a school's students, a universal voucher system would undoubtedly harm large numbers of disadvantaged students. Although the case for a small means tested voucher program is somewhat stronger, it will do little to improve education for low-performing students. [close]
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Neal, Derek (2002).
How Vouchers Could Change the Market for Education.
In: Journal of Economic Perspectives
16(4)
, 25-44
.
Abstract.
Link.
As vouchers become a more significant part of education policy debates, the time is right to consider what we know and do not know about the likely effects of adopting various voucher schemes. In the balance of this paper, the author describes both empirical and theoretical work on education that speaks to this topic. He argues that we cannot confidently predict the outcomes that would result from various voucher schemes, and he also stresses that debates over vouchers per se are not informative. Details concerning funding, targeting and discretion in the use of vouchers should greatly affect the outcomes associated with any. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2009).
International Evidence on School Tracking: A Review.
In: CESifo DICE Report - Journal for Institutional Comparisons
7(1)
, 26-34
.
Abstract.
Link.
A large number of publications can be downloaded using “free download”. If the download and/or the printed version can be ordered, “add to basket” is displayed next to the price. The prices are shown including value-added tax but without possible mailing charges and without possible discounts. In ordering the printed versions, a choice is possible between payment on invoice or credit card payment. When purchasing downloads, the files are available immediately after credit card payment. [close]
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Hanushek, Eric A., Charles S. Benson, Richard B. Freeman et al. (1994).
Making Schools Work: Improving Performance and Controlling Costs.
Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
America's public schools should be the best in the world. Per-student expenditures have historically exceeded those of every other country, yet students coming out of America's elementary and secondary schools fare poorly in head-to-head competition with students from other parts of the world. Despite ever-rising school budgets, student performance has stagnated. Parents, educators, and policymakers generally agree that something must be done to improve schools, but the consensus ends there. The myriad of reform documents and policy discussions that have appeared over the past decade have not helped to pinpoint exactly what should be done. Many believe the easiest solution is to increase spending, as if money alone will cure the ails of American education. Making Schools Work shows that improvement of schools today depends more on better use of resources than on provision of added funds.This book is the culmination of extensive discussion among a panel of economists led by Eric A. Hanushek. The authors conclude that although the case for investment in education is in large measure an economic one--schooling improves productivity and earnings of individuals and promotes stronger economic growth--economic considerations have been entirely absent from the development of educational policies.The book outlines a unique plan to improve school performance without increasing expenditures. The authors call for more efficient use of resources, greater performance incentives, and continuous learning and adaptation. Rather than concentrating on spending more, schools must learn to consider trade-offs among programs and operations and must evaluate performance and eliminate programs that are not working. America's future depends on the quality of its schools. This book shows how educators, policymakers, parents, and students can work together to improve the system. [close]
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Hanushek, Eric A. and Ludger Woessmann (2011).
The Economics of International Differences in Educational Achievement.
In: Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Woessmann (ed.).
Handbook of the Economics of Education, Vol. 3.
Amsterdam:
North Holland
, 89-200
.
Abstract.
Link.
An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit institutional variation that does not exist within countries; draw on much larger variation than usually available within any country; reveal whether any result is country-specific or more general; test whether effects are systematically heterogeneous in different settings; circumvent selection issues that plague within-country identification by using system-level aggregated measures; and uncover general-equilibrium effects that often elude studies in a single country. The advantages come at the price of concerns about the limited number of country observations, the cross-sectional character of most available achievement data, and possible bias from unobserved country factors like culture. This chapter reviews the economic literature on international differences in educational achievement, restricting itself to comparative analyses that are not possible within single countries and placing particular emphasis on studies trying to address key issues of empirical identification. While quantitative input measures show little impact, several measures of institutional structures and of the quality of the teaching force can account for significant portions of the large international differences in the level and equity of student achievement. Variations in skills measured by the international tests are in turn strongly related to individual labor-market outcomes and, perhaps more importantly, to cross-country variations in economic growth. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (ed.) (2003).
The Economics of School Choice.
Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared school voucher programs constitutional, the many unanswered questions concerning the potential effects of school choice will become especially pressing. Contributors to this volume draw on state-of-the-art economic methods to answer some of these questions, investigating the ways in which school choice affects a wide range of issues. Combining the results of empirical research with analyses of the basic economic forces underlying local education markets, The Economics of School Choice presents evidence concerning the impact of school choice on student achievement, school productivity, teachers, and special education. It also tackles difficult questions such as whether school choice affects where people decide to live and how choice can be integrated into a system of school financing that gives children from different backgrounds equal access to resources. Contributors discuss the latest findings on Florida's school choice program as well as voucher programs and charter schools in several other states. The resulting volume not only reveals the promise of school choice, but examines its pitfalls as well, showing how programs can be designed that exploit the idea's potential but avoid its worst effects. With school choice programs gradually becoming both more possible and more popular, this book stands out as an essential exploration of the effects such programs will have, and a necessary resource for anyone interested in the idea of school choice. [close]
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Heckman, James J., John Eric Humphries and Nicholas S. Mader (2011).
The GED.
In: Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Woessmann (eds.).
Handbook of the Economics of Education, Vol. 3.
Amsterdam:
North-Holland
, 423-483
.
Abstract.
Link.
The General Educational Development (GED) credential is issued on the basis of an eight-hour subject-based test. The test claims to establish equivalence between dropouts and traditional high school graduates, opening the door to college and positions in the labor market. In 2008 alone, almost 500,000 dropouts passed the test, amounting to 12% of all high school credentials issued in that year. This chapter reviews the academic literature on the GED, which finds minimal value of the certificate in terms of labor market outcomes and that only a few individuals successfully use it as a path to obtain post-secondary credentials. Although the GED establishes cognitive equivalence on one measure of scholastic aptitude, recipients still face limited opportunity due to deficits in noncognitive skills such as persistence, motivation, and reliability. The literature finds that the GED testing program distorts social statistics on high school completion rates, minority graduation gaps, and sources of wage growth. Recent work demonstrates that, through its availability and low cost, the GED also induces some students to drop out of school. The GED program is unique to the United States and Canada, but provides policy insight relevant to any nation's educational context. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (2003).
School Choice and School Competition: Evidence from the United States.
In: Swedish Economic Policy Review
10(3)
, 09-65
.
Abstract.
Link.
The most frequently asked questions about school choice are: Do public schools respond constructively to competition induced byschool choice, by raising their own productivity? Does students’ achievement rise when they attend voucher or charter schools? Do voucher and charter schools end up with a selection of the better students (“cream-skim”)? I review the evidence on these questions from the United States, relying primarily on recent policy experiments. Public schools do respond constructively to competition, by raising their achievement and productivity. The best studies on this question examine the introduction of choice programs that have been sufficiently large and long-lived to produce competition. Students’ achievement generally does rise when they attend voucher or charter schools. The best studies on this question use, as a control group, students who are randomized out of choice programs. Not only do currently enacted voucher and charter school programs not cream-skim; they disproportionately attract students who were performing badly in their regular public schools. This confirms what theory predicts: there are no general results on the sorting consequences of school choice. The sorting consequences of a school choice plan depend strongly on its design. [close]
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Figlio, David and Susanna Loeb (2011).
School Accountability.
In: Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Woessmann (eds.).
Handbook of the Economics of Education, Vol. 3.
Amsterdam:
North-Holland
, 383-421
.
Abstract.
Link.
School accountability—the process of evaluating school performance on the basis of student performance measures—is increasingly prevalent around the world. In the United States, accountability has become a centerpiece of both Democratic and Republican federal administrations' education policies. This chapter reviews the theory of school-based accountability, describes variations across programs, and identifies key features influencing the effectiveness and possible unintended consequences of accountability policies. The chapter then summarizes the research literature on the effects of test-based accountability on students and teachers, concluding that the preponderance of evidence suggests positive effects of the accountability movement in the United States during the 1990s and early 2000s on student achievement, especially in math. The effects on teachers and on students' long-run outcomes are more difficult to judge. It is also clear that school personnel respond to accountability in both positive and negative ways, and that accountability systems run the risk of being counter-productive if not carefully thought out and monitored. [close]
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CESifo DICE Report (2004).
Forum: Institutions for Better Education.
In: CESifo DICE Report Journal for Institutional Comparisons
2(4)
, 03-43
.
Link.
[close]
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Bettinger, Eric (2011).
Educational Vouchers in International Contexts.
In: Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Woessmann (eds.).
Handbook of the Economics of Education, Vol. 4.
Amsterdam:
North-Holland
, 551-572
.
Abstract.
Link.
International evidence on school choice largely focuses on educational voucher or voucher-like systems. The research to date primarily focuses on two complementary questions: what are the effects of school choice on students who exercise school choice? and what are the effects of school choice on the overall System that allows choice? In this chapter, we review the educational voucher focusing on these two research questions. We primarily focus on educational voucher programs in Chile, Colombia, and Sweden. We discuss each of these programs and the accompanying literature in depth. We briefly discuss research from other countries, especially ongoing research in India, which may provide key insights into voucher and school-choice debates. Although there are a number of similarities between research on school choice in the United States and abroad, research on school choice abroad presents an entirely different set of political circumstances, institutions, and funding schemes. We discuss these issues and their impact on generalizeability of international research. We also recommend future directions for voucher research, particularly, in identifying key components of voucher systems that have led to the observed effects to date. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2003).
Schooling Resources, Educational Institutions, and Student Performance: The International Evidence.
In: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
65(2)
, 117-170
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper estimates the effects of family background, resources and institutions on mathematics and science performance using an international database of more than 260,000 students from 39 countries which includes extensive background information at the student, teacher, school and system level. The student-level estimations show that international differences in student performance cannot be attributed to resource differences but are considerably related to institutional differences. Among the many institutions which combine to yield major positive effects on student performance are centralized examinations and control mechanisms, school autonomy in personnel and process decisions, individual teacher influence over teaching methods, limits to teacher unions' influence on curriculum scope, scrutiny of students' achievement and competition from private schools. [close]
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Hanushek, Eric A. and Ludger Woessmann (2006).
Does Early Tracking Affect Educational Inequality and Performance? Differences-in-Differences Evidence across Countries.
In: Economic Journal
116(510)
, C63-C76
.
Abstract.
Link.
Even though some countries track students into differing-ability schools by age 10, others keep their entire secondary-school system comprehensive. To estimate the effects of such institutional differences in the face of country heterogeneity, we employ an international differences-in-differences approach. We identify tracking effects by comparing differences in outcome between primary and secondary school across tracked and non-tracked systems. Six international student assessments provide eight pairs of achievement contrasts for between 18 and 26 cross-country comparisons. The results suggest that early tracking increases educational inequality. While less clear, there is also a tendency for early tracking to reduce mean performance. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (2000).
Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?.
In: American Economic Review
90(5)
, 1209-1238
.
Abstract.
Link.
Tiebout choice among districts is the most powerful market force in American public education. Naive estimates of its effects are biased by endogenous district formation. I derive instruments from the natural boundaries in a metropolitan area. My results suggest that metropolitan areas with greater Tiebout choice have more productive public schools and less private schooling. Little of the effect of Tiebout choice works through its effect on household sorting. This finding may be explained by another finding: students are equally segregated by school in metropolitan areas with greater and lesser degrees of Tiebout choice among districts. [close]
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Fuchs, Thomas and Ludger Woessmann (2004).
Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School.
In: Brussels Economic Review
47(3-4)
, 359-385
.
Abstract.
Link.
We estimate the relationship between students’ educational achievement and the availability and use of computers at home and at school in the international student-level PISA database. Bivariate analyses show a positive correlation between student achievement and the availability of computers both at home and at schools. However, once we control extensively for family background and school characteristics, the relationship gets negative for home computers and insignificant for school computers. Thus, the mere availability of computers at home seems to distract students from effective learning. But measures of computer use for education and communication at home show a positive conditional relationship with student achievement. The conditional relationship between student achievement and computer and internet use at school has an inverted U-shape, which may reflect either ability bias combined with negative effects of computerized instruction or a low optimal level of computerized instruction. [close]
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Gradstein, Mark, Moshe Justman and Volker Meier (2004).
The Political Economy of Education: Implications for Growth and Inequality.
Cambridge, MA.:
MIT Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
The dominant role played by the state in the financing, regulation, and provision of primary and secondary education reflects the widely-held belief that education is necessary for personal and societal well-being. The economic organization of education depends on political as well as market mechanisms to resolve issues that arise because of contrasting views on such matters as income inequality, social mobility, and diversity. This book provides the theoretical framework necessary for understanding the political economy of education -- the complex relationship of education, economic growth, and income distribution -- and for formulating effective policies to improve the financing and provision of education. The relatively simple models developed illustrate the use of analytical tools for understanding central policy issues. After offering a historical overview of the development of public education and a review of current econometric evidence on education, growth, and income distribution, the authors lay the theoretical groundwork for the main body of analysis. First they develop a basic static model of how political decisions determine education spending; then they extend this model dynamically. Applying this framework to a comparison of education financing under different regimes, the authors explore fiscal decentralization; individual choice between public and private schooling, including the use of education vouchers to combine public financing of education with private provision; and the social dimension of education -- its role in state-building, the traditional "melting pot" that promotes cohesion in a culturally diverse society. [close]
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Jacob, Brian A. (2005).
Accountability, Incentives and Behavior: The Impact of High-stakes Testing in the Chicago Public Schools.
In: Journal of Public Economics
89(5-6)
, 761-796
.
Abstract.
Link.
The recent federal education bill, No Child Left Behind, requires states to test students in grades three to eight each year, and to judge school performance on the basis of these test scores. While intended to maximize student learning, there is little empirical evidence about the effectiveness of such policies. This study examines the impact of an accountability policy implemented in the Chicago Public Schools in 1996-97. Using a panel of student-level, administrative data, I find that math and reading achievement increased sharply following the introduction of the accountability policy, in comparison to both prior achievement trends in the district and to changes experienced by other large, urban districts in the mid-west. I demonstrate that these gains were driven largely by increases in test-specific skills and student effort, and did not lead to comparable gains on a state-administered, low-stakes exam. I also find that teachers responded strategically to the incentives along a variety of dimensions -- by increasing special education placements, preemptively retaining students and substituting away from low-stakes subjects like science and social studies. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (2001).
All School Finance Equalizations Are Not Created Equal.
In: Quarterly Journal of Economics
116(4)
, 1189-1231
.
Abstract.
Link.
Public school finance equalization programs can be characterized by the change they impose on the tax price of an additional dollar of local school spending. I calculate the tax price of spending for each school district in the United States for 1972, 1982, and 1992. I find that using the actual tax prices (rather than treating school finance equalizations as events) resolves apparently conflicting evidence about the effects of equalizations on per-pupil spending. Depending on whether they impose tax prices greater than or less than one, school finance equalizations either enjoy increased spending under most equalization schemes, but they actually lose spending under the strongest schemes such as those that exist in California and New Mexico. More importantly, regardless of whether an equalization levels down or up, it should be understood as a tax system on districts' spending. I show that school finance equalization schemes have properties that are generally considered undesirable: they raise revenue on a base that is itself a function of the school finance system and they assign tax prices so that people with a high demand for education are penalized relative to otherwise identical people with the same income. I discuss some simple, familiar schemes that do not have these undesirable properties, yet can achieve similar redistribution. [close]
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Ladd, Helen F. and Randall P. Walsh (2002).
Implementing Value-Added Measures of School Effectiveness: Getting the Incentives Right.
In: Economics of Education Review
21(1)
, 01-17
.
Abstract.
Link.
As part of their efforts to hold schools accountable, several states now calculate and publicize value-added measures of school effectiveness. This paper provides a careful evaluation of the value-added approach to measuring school success with particular attention to its implementation as a tool for increasing student achievement. In practice, even the more sophisticated of the measures currently in use fail to account for differences in resources, broadly defined, across schools and to address the problem of measurement error. The authors find that, as implemented, value-added measures of school effectiveness distort incentives and are likely to discourage good teachers and administrators from working in schools serving concentrations of disadvantaged students. The authors use a large longitudinally-matched data set of fifth grade students in North Carolina to document that approximately 2/5 of the differentially favorable outcome for schools serving advantaged students results from statistical bias associated with measurement error and that correcting for the measurement error leads to significant changes in the relative rankings of schools. [close]
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Hanushek, Eric A. and Margaret E. Raymond (2004).
The Effect of School Accountability Systems on the Level and Distribution of Student Achievement.
In: Journal of the European Economic Association
2(2-3)
, 406-415
.
Abstract.
Link.
The use of school accountability in the United States to improve student performance began in the separate states during the 1980s and was elevated through the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Evaluating the impact of accountability is difficult because it applies to entire states and can be confused with other changes in the states. We consider how the differential introduction of accountability across states affects growth in student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Our preliminary analysis finds that: 1) accountability improves scores of all students; 2) there is no significant difference between simply reporting scores and attaching consequences; and, 3) while accountability tends to narrow the Hispanic-White gap, it tends to widen the Black-White gap in scores. The last finding suggests that a single policy instrument cannot be expected to satisfy multiple simultaneous goals. [close]
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Jacob, Brian A. and Steven D. Levitt (2003).
Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating.
In: Quarterly Journal of Economics
118(3)
, 843-877
.
Abstract.
Link.
We develop an algorithm for detecting teacher cheating that combines information on unexpected test score fluctuations and suspicious patterns of answers for students in a classroom. Using data from the Chicago public schools, we estimate that serious cases of teacher or administrator cheating on standardized tests occur in a minimum of 4–5 percent of elementary school classrooms annually. The observed frequency of cheating appears to respond strongly to relatively minor changes in incentives. Our results highlight the fact that high-powered incentive systems, especially those with bright line rules, may induce unexpected behavioral distortions such as cheating. Statistical analysis, however, may provide a means of detecting illicit acts, despite the best attempts of perpetrators to keep them clandestine. [close]
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Howell, William G., Patrick J. Wolf, David E. Campbell and Paul E. Peterson (2002).
School Vouchers and Academic Performance: Results from Three Randomized Field Trials.
In: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
21(2)
, 191-217
.
Abstract.
Link.
This article examines the effects of school vouchers on student test scores in New York, New York, Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, DC. The evaluations in all three cities are designed as randomized field trials. The findings, therefore, are not confounded by the self-selection problems that pervade most observational data. After 2 years, African Americans who switched from public to private school gained, relative to their public-school peers, an average of 6.3 National Percentile Ranking points in the three cities on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The gains by city were 4.2 points in New York, 6.5 points in Dayton, and 9.2 points in Washington. Effects for African Americans are statistically significant in all three cities. In no city are statistically significant effects observed for other ethnic groups, after either 1 or 2 years. [close]
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Jürges, Hendrik, Kerstin Schneider and Felix Büchel (2005).
The Effect of Central Exit Examinations on Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from TIMSS Germany.
In: Journal of the European Economic Association
3(5)
, 1134-1155
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper makes use of the regional variation in schooling legislation within the German secondary education system to estimate the causal effect of central exit examinations on student performance. We propose a difference-in-differences framework that exploits the quasi-experimental nature of the German TIMSS middle school sample and discuss its identifying assumptions. The estimates show that students in federal states with central exit examinations clearly outperform students in federal states without such examinations. However, only part of this difference can be attributed to the existence of the central exit examinations themselves. Our results suggest that central examinations increase student achievement by the equivalent of about one-third of a school year. [close]
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Kane, Thomas J. and Douglas O. Staiger (2002).
The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Imprecise School Accountability Measures.
In: Journal of Economic Perspectives
16(4)
, 91-114
.
Abstract.
Link.
In recent years, most states have constructed elaborate accountability systems using school-level test scores. However, because the median elementary school contains only 69 children per grade level, such measures are quite imprecise. We evaluate the implications for school accountability systems. For instance, rewards or sanctions for schools with scores at either extreme primarily affect small schools and provide weak incentives to large ones. Nevertheless, we conclude that accountability systems may be worthwhile. Even in states with aggressive financial incentives, the marginal reward to schools for raising student performance is a small fraction of the potential labor market value for students. [close]
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Lazear, Edward P. (2003).
Teacher Incentives.
In: Swedish Economic Policy Review
10
, 179-214
.
Abstract.
Link.
Like all workers, teachers may be expected to respond to incentives inherent in compensation structures. As such, general theories of compensation should apply to teaching. Those theories suggest that output-based pay is best used when output is well defined and easily measured. Input-based pay is best when jobs are inherently risky and when output is not easily observed. The main difficulty with outputbased pay is that even if teachers can affect their students’ earnings, the evidence does not show up until many years after the student leaves the teacher’s class. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 provides evidence that earnings later in life are related to test scores when children are as young as twelve years old. Actual compensation structures in both the US and Sweden are examined. The main features for both countries include relatively low pay, the reluctance to tie compensation to output and a pattern pay compression, both across fields and by teacher performance. Low pay makes it difficult to attract a large enough quantity of high quality teachers. Compression results in some adverse selection, where the highest quality teachers may be induced to leave the profession. A primary reason to increase teacher pay and to tie it to performance is that teacher quality would be improved by such policies. Finally, teacher and student preferences may deviate from the optimum. This occurs primarily because of the failure to price working conditions and school inputs appropriately. As a result, teacher, student and parent decisions may be distorted. [close]
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Levačić, Rosalind (2004).
Competition and the Performance of English Secondary Schools: Further Evidence.
In: Education Economics
12(2)
, 177-193
.
Abstract.
Link.
Both advocates of competition as a means to better school performance and economics-based research on this issue assume a direct relationship between a more competitive market structure (in terms of the number and concentration of schools in a local market) and better school performance. This is an application to schools of the structure-conduct-performance model. It is assumed that head teachers and other professionals are motivated solely by self-interest, so that lack of competition results in x-inefficiency. However, if educational professionals are motivated by other considerations, in particular their values and beliefs, there is no automatic link between competitive structure and forms of competitive conduct that lead to better school performance. Since it is competitive conduct that affects school performance, the hypothesis of a postitive relationship between competition and performance is investigated in this study by collecting and analysing data on perceptions of competitive conduct from a survey of headteachers. An analysis of these data combined with administrative data finds that: the two measures of perceived competition are only weakly related to measures of structural competition; the number of perceived competitors is positively and significantly related to school performance in terms of the percentage of students obtaining 5 or more grades A* to C at GCSE but not the percentage obtaining 5 + A*-G grades. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2005b).
Ursachenkomplexe der PISA-Ergebnisse: Untersuchungen auf Basis der internationalen Mikrodaten.
In: Tertium Comparationis - Journal für International und Interkulturell Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft
11(2)
, 152-176
.
Abstract.
Link.
The paper estimates the correlates of student performance across countries using student-level data from the PISA-2000 study. There is a substantial relationship of international student performance in math, science, and reading with institutional features. In particular, there are positive associations with accountability through external exit exams, school autonomy in personnel-management and process decisions, and private operation of schools. By contrast, there is no positive association with private school funding, and a negative association with autonomy in areas with scope for decentralized opportunistic behavior. Student performance shows a positive relationship with school autonomy particularly where external exit exams are in place, highlighting the role of external exams as “currency” of school systems. Positive associations of student performance with resource endowments of schools are mainly related to resource quality. While there is a strong association with family background, computer availability at home shows even a negative relationship with student performance on basic skills, after holding other effects constant. The explanatory power of the model between countries is remarkable. [close]
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Nechyba, Thomas J. (2003).
Centralization, Fiscal Federalism, and Private School Attendance.
In: International Economic Review
44(1)
, 179-204
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper uses a computational general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of public school finance regimes on rates of private school attendance. It is shown that, when viewed in such a general equilibrium context, state intervention in locally financed systems can have somewhat unexpected and counterintuitive effects on the level of private school attendance. In particular, the common perception that centralization of public school finance will necessarily lead to greater private school attendance is no longer correct when general equilibrium forces are taken into account even when that centralization involves an extreme equalization of the kind observed in California. Furthermore, if centralization occurs through less dramatic means that allow for some remaining discretion on the part of local districts, declines in private school attendance become much more unambiguous and pronounced. These results then weaken the speculation that low exit rates to private schools in centralizing states imply that general public school quality does not drop as a result of such centralization. [close]
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Peterson, Paul E., William G. Howell, Patrick J. Wolf and David E. Campbell (2003).
School Vouchers: Results from Randomized Experiments.
In: Caroline M. Hoxby (ed.).
The Economics of School Choice.
Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
, 107-144
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper is a report on the estimated effects on students and families of the offer of a voucher (the "intention-to-treat" effect) and the effects of switching from a public to a private school (the "treatment-on-the-treated" effect). Specifically, the report estimates the impact of voucher programs on student test scores, parental satisfaction with their childrens school, and parental reports of the characteristics of the school their children attended. Data for the report were gathered from test scores and parent surveys in schools with voucher programs in Washington, D.C.; New York City; and Dayton, Ohio. Following are three major findings of the study: (1) In the three cases taken together, effects of school vouchers on average test performance were found only for African-American students, whose scores were higher than scores of African-American students in public school; (2) Families that used vouchers to attend private schools were much more satisfied with their schooling than were families who remained in public schools; and (3) The educational environment of private schools was more conducive to learning than was that of public schools. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2005a).
Public-Private Partnerships in Schooling: Cross-Country Evidence on their Effectiveness in Providing Cognitive Skills.
PEPG 05-09.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper provides a comparative analysis of the association between student achievement and public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education across different countries. It uses student-level data from the PISA international student achievement test that provides information on the public-private character of both operation and funding of each tested school. The cross-country “big picture” results suggest that public school operation is associated with lower student outcomes, but public school funding with better student outcomes. Thus, systems of PPPs that combine private operation with public funding do best among all possible operation-funding combinations, while systems of PPPs that combine public operation with private funding do worst. Within-country results suggest that the advantage of private operation is particularly strong in countries with large shares of public funding. The results favor educational PPPs of the form where the state does the funding and the private sector runs the schools. [close]
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Meghir, Costas and Mårten Palme (2005).
Educational Reform, Ability and Family Background.
In: American Economic Review
95(1)
, 414-424
.
Abstract.
Link.
In this paper we evaluate the impact of a major school reform, that took place in the 1950s in Sweden, on educational attainment and earnings. The reform, which has many common elements with reforms in other European countries including the UK, consisted of increasing compulsor schooling, imposing a national curriculum and abolishing selectionby ability into Academic and non-academic streams at the age of 12 (comprehensive school reform). Our data combines survey data with administrative sources. We find that the reform increased both the educational attainment and the earnings of children whose fathers had just complusory education. However the earnings of those with educated parents declined - possibly because of a dilution of quality at the top end of the education levels. The overall effect of the reform was however positive. [close]
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Sandstrom, F. Mikael and Fredrik Bergstrom (2005).
School Vouchers in Practice: Competition Will Not Hurt You.
In: Journal of Public Economics
89(2-3)
, 351-380
.
Abstract.
Link.
An important issue in the debate on voucher systems and school choice is what effects competition from independent schools will have on public schools. Sweden has made a radical reform of its system for financing schools. Independent and public schools operate on close to equal terms under a voucher system covering all children. Sample selection models are estimated, using a data set of about 28 000 individuals. In addition, panel data models are estimated on 288 Swedish municipalities. The findings support the hypothesis that school results in public schools improve due to competition. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2005c).
Accountability through External Exams and the Management of Educational Institutions.
In: International Journal for Education Law and Policy
Special Issue
, 57-76
.
Link.
[close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2003b).
Zentrale Prüfung als "Währung" des Bildungssystems: Zur Komplementarität von Schulautonomie und Zentralprüfungen.
In: Vierteljahresheft zur Wirtschaftsforschung
72(2)
, 220-237
.
Abstract.
Link.
So wie die Währung im Wirtschaftssystem die Funktion eines „Wertmaßstabes“ innehat, können einheitliche Leistungsüberprüfungen im Schulsystem als Bewertungsmaßstab fungieren, der zur Überwindung von Informationsasymmetrien beiträgt und opportunistisches Verhalten dezentraler Entscheidungsträger verhindert. Damit werden Zentralprüfungen zur Voraussetzung dafür, dass dezentral organisierte Schulsysteme zu hohen Schülerleistungen führen können. Diese Komplementarität zwischen Zentralprüfungen und Schulautonomie wird zunächst in einem Prinzipal-Agenten-Ansatz der Bildungsproduktion theoretisch abgebildet und dann anhand der internationalen TIMSS-Schülerleistungsvergleichsstudien empirisch getestet. Die mikroökonometrischen Schätzungen weisen in einem ersten Schritt starke positive Leistungseffekte zentraler Prüfungen nach. In einem zweiten Schritt werden Interaktionseffekte zwischen Zentralprüfungen und Schulautonomie zugelassen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass sich Schulautonomie in Schulsystemen ohne Zentralprüfungen vielfach negativ auf Schülerleistungen auswirkt. In Schulsystemen mit Zentralprüfungen werden diese negativen Autonomieeffekte zumeist vollständig abgebaut, und im Fall der Schulautonomie über Lehrergehälter kehren sie sich in stark positive Effekte um. Eine effiziente Bildungspolitik sollte also Zentralprüfungen mit Schulautonomie verbinden, d. h. Standards extern vorgeben und überprüfen, aber den Schulen die Art ihres Erreichens überlassen. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (1994).
Do Private Schools Provide Competition for Public Schools?.
NBER Working Paper 4978.
Abstract.
Link.
Arguments in favor of school choice depend on the idea that competition between schools improves the quality of education. However, we have almost no empirical evidence on whether competition actually affects school quality. In this study, I examine the effects of inter-school competition on public schools by using exogenous variation in the availability and costs of private school alternatives to public schools. Because low public school quality raises the demand for private schools as substitutes for public schools, we cannot simply compare public school students' outcomes in areas with and without substantial private school enrollment. Such simple comparisons confound the effect of greater private school competitiveness with the increased demand for private schools where the public schools are poor in quality. I derive instruments for private school competition from the fact that it is less expensive and difficult to set up religious schools, which accounts for 9 out of 10 private school students in the U.S., in areas densely populated by members of the affiliated religion. I find that greater private school competitiveness significantly raises the quality of public schools, as measured by the educational attainment, wages, and high school graduation rates of public school students. In addition, I find some evidence that public schools react to greater competitiveness of private schools by paying higher teacher salaries. [close]
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Argys, Laura M., Daniel I. Rees and Dominic J. Brewer (1996).
Detracking America's Schools: Equity at Zero Cost?.
In: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
15(4)
, 623-645
.
Abstract.
Link.
Schools across the country are ending the practice of grouping students based on ability, in part because of research indicating that tracking hurts low-ability students without helping students of other ability levels. Using a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the authors reexamine the impact of tracking on high school student achievement through the estimation of a standard education production function. This approach allows them to control for the possibility that track is correlated with factors such as class size and teacher education. In addition, the authors address the possibility that there are unobserved student or school characteristics that affect both achievement and track placement. The authors' results indicate that abolishing tracking in America's schools would have a large positive impact on achievement for students currently in the lower tracks, but that this increase in achievement would come at the expense of students in upper-track classes. [close]
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Chubb, John E. and Terry M. Moe (1990).
Politics, Markets, and America's Schools.
Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press
.
Abstract.
Link.
During the 1980s, widespread dissatisfaction with America's schools gave rise to a powerful movement for educational change, and the nation's political institutions responded with aggressive reforms. Chubb and Moe argue that these reforms are destined to fail because they do not get to the root of the problem. The fundamental causes of poor academic performance, they claim, are not to be found in the schools, but rather in the institutions of direct democratic control by which the schools have traditionally been governed. Reformers fail to solve the problem-when the institutions ARE the problem. The authors recommend a new system of public education, built around parent-student choice and school competition, that would promote school autonomy-thus providing a firm foundation for genuine school improvement and superior student achievement. [close]
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Bishop, John H. (1997).
The Effect of National Standards and Curriculum-Based Exams on Achievement.
In: American Economic Review
87(2)
, 260-264
.
Abstract.
Link.
Our review of the evidence suggests that the claims of the advocates of standards and examination based reform of American secondary education may be right. The countries and Canadian provinces with such systems outperform other countries at comparable levels of development. In addition, New York State, the only state with a CBEEE, does remarkably well on the SAT test when student demography is held constant (Bishop 1996). CBEEEs are not, however, the most important determinant of achievement levels. CBEEEs are common in developing nations where achievement levels are often quite low [eg. Columbia and Iran]. Belgium, by contrast, has a top quality education system without having a CBEEE. More research on the effects of CBEEEs is clearly in order. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (1999).
The Productivity of Schools and Other Local Public Goods Producers.
In: Journal of Public Economics
74(1)
, 01-30
.
Abstract.
Link.
I construct an agency model of local public goods producers in which households make Tiebout choices among jurisdictions in a world of imperfect information and costly residential mobility. I examine producers’ effort and rent under local property tax finance and centralized finance. I show that, if there are a sufficient number of jurisdictions, conventional local property tax finance can attain about as much productivity as a social planner with centralized finance can, even if the social planner is armed with more information than a real social planner could plausibly have. The key insight is that decentralized Tiebout choices make some information the social planner would need verifiable and other information unnecessary. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (1996).
How Teachers’ Unions Affect Education Production.
In: Journal of Economics
111(3)
, 671-718
.
Abstract.
Link.
This study helps to explain why measured school inputs appear to have little effect on student outcomes, particularly for cohorts educated since 1960. Teachers' unionization can explain how public schools simultaneously can have more generous inputs and worse student performance. Using panel data on United States school districts, I identify the effect of teachers' unionization through differences in the timing of collective bargaining, especially timing determined by the passage of state laws that facilitate teachers' unionization. I find that teachers' unions increase school inputs but reduce productivity sufficiently to have a negative overall effect on student performance. Union effects are magnified where schools have market power. [close]
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Holmstrom, Bengt and Paul Milgrom (1991).
Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design.
In: Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
7 (special issue)
, 24-52
.
Link.
[close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2003a).
Central Exit Exams and Student Achievement: International Evidence.
In: Paul E. Peterson and M. R. West (eds.).
No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability.
Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press
, 292-323
.
[close]
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Shleifer, Andrei (1998).
State versus Private Ownership.
In: Journal of Economic Perspectives
12(4)
, 133-150
.
Abstract.
Link.
Private ownership should generally be preferred to public ownership when the incentives to innovate and to contain costs must be strong. In essence, this is the case for capitalism over socialism, explaining the dynamic vitality' of free enterprise. The great economists of the 1930s and 1940s failed to see the dangers of socialism in part because they focused on the role of prices under socialism and capitalism and ignored the enormous importance of ownership as the source of capitalist incentives to innovate. Moreover, many of the concerns that private firms fail to address social goals' can be addressed through government contacting and regulation without resort to government ownership. The case for private provision only becomes stronger when competition between suppliers, reputational mechanisms, and the possibility of provision by private not-for-profit firms, as well as political patronage and corruption, are brought into play. [close]
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Bloom, Nicholas, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen (2015).
Does Management Matter in Schools.
In: Economic Journal
125(584)
, 647-674
.
Abstract.
Link.
We collect data on management practices in over 1,800 high schools in eight countries. We show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the US obtain the highest management scores, followed by Germany, with a gap before Italy, Brazil and India. We also show that autonomous government schools (government funded but with substantial independence like UK academies and US charters) have higher management scores than regular government or private schools. Almost half of the difference between the management scores of autonomous and regular government schools is accounted for principal leadership and governance. [close]
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Friedman, Milton (1962).
Capitalism and Freedom.
Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
.
Abstract.
In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism--the organization of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market--as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. Beginning with a discussion of principles of a liberal society, Friedman applies them to such constantly pressing problems as monetary policy, discrimination, education, income distribution, welfare, and poverty. [close]
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Filer, Randall K. and Daniel Münich (2013).
Responses of Private and Public Schools to Voucher Funding.
In: Economics of Education Review
34
, 269–285
.
Abstract.
Link.
The post-communist Czech Republic provides a laboratory in which to investigate possible responses to the adoption of universal education vouchers. Private schools appear to have arisen in response to distinct market incentives. They are more common in fields where public school inertia has resulted in an under-supply of available slots. They are also more common where the public schools appear to be doing a worse job in their primary educational mission, as demonstrated by the success rate of academic secondary schools in obtaining university admission for their graduates. Public schools facing private competition improve their performance. They spend a larger fraction of their resources on classroom instruction and significantly reduce class sizes. Furthermore, Czech public academic secondary schools facing significant private competition by 1996 substantially improved their relative success in obtaining university admissions for their graduates between 1996 and 1998. The rise of private schools, however, also spurred maneuvering by the administrations of public schools to preserve these schools’ entrenched position, pointing out how important it is that any voucher system be simple and leave as little opportunity as possible for discretionary actions on the part of implementing officials. [close]
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Figlio, David N. and Marianne E. Page (2002).
School Choice and the Distributional Effects of Ability Tracking: Does Separation Increase Inequality?.
In: Journal of Urban Economics
51(3)
, 497-514
.
Abstract.
Link.
Tracking programs have been criticized on the grounds that they harm disadvantaged children. The bulk of empirical research supports this view. These studies are conducted by comparing outcomes for across students placed in different tracks. Track placement, however, is likely to be endogenous with respect to outcomes. We use a new strategy for overcoming the endogeneity of track placement and find no evidence that tracking hurts low-ability children. We also demonstrate that tracking programs help schools attract more affluent students. Previous studies have been based on the assumption that students' enrollment decisions are unrelated to whether or not the school tracks. When we take school choice into account, we find evidence that low-ability children may be helped by tracking programs. [close]
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Cullen, Julie B., Brian A. Jacob and Steven D. Levitt (2005).
The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools.
In: Journal of Public Economics
89(5-6)
, 729-760
.
Abstract.
Link.
Current education reform proposals involve improving educational outcomes through forms of market-based competition and expanded parental choice. In this paper, we explore the impact of choice through open enrollment within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Roughly half of the students within CPS opt out of their assigned high school to attend other neighborhood schools or special career academies and magnet schools. Access to school choice dramatically increases student sorting by ability relative to neighborhood assignment. Students who opt out are more likely to graduate than observationally similar students who remain at their assigned schools. However, with the exception of those attending career academies, the gains appear to be largely spurious driven by the fact that more motivated students are disproportionately likely to opt out. Students with easy geographical access to a range of schools other than career academies (who presumably have a greater degree of school choice) are no more likely to graduate on average than students in more isolated areas. We find no evidence that this finding can be explained by negative spillovers to those who remain that mask gains to those who travel. Open enrollment apparently benefits those students who take advantage of having access to vocational programs without harming those who do not. [close]
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Figlio, David N. and Maurice E. Lucas (2004).
Do High Grading Standards Affect Student Performance?.
In: Journal of Public Economics
88(9)
, 1815-1834
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper explores the effects of high grading standards on student test performance in elementary school. While high standards have been advocated by policy-makers, business groups, and teacher unions, very little is known about their effects on outcomes. Most of the existing research on standards is theoretical, generally finding that standards have mixed effects on students. However, very little empirical work has to date been completed on this topic. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of grading standards, measured at the teacher level. Using an exceptionally rich set of data including every third, fourth, and fifth grader in a large school district over four years, we match students’ test score gains and disciplinary problems to teacher-level grading standards. In models in which we control for student-level fixed effects, we find substantial evidence that higher grading standards benefit students, and that the magnitudes of these effects depend on the match between the student and the classroom. While dynamic selection and mean reversion complicate the estimated effects of grading standards, they tend to lead to understated effects of standards. [close]
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Brunello, Giorgio and Daniele Checchi (2005).
School quality and family background in Italy.
In: Economics of Education Review
24(5)
, 563-577
.
Abstract.
Link.
We study whether the combined significant reduction in the pupil–teacher ratio and increase in parental education observed in Italy between the end of the second World War and the end of the 1980s have had a significant impact on the educational attainment and the labor market returns of a representative sample of Italians born between 1941 and 1970. We find that the lower pupil–teacher ratio is positively correlated with higher educational attainment, but that the overall improvement of parental education has had an even stronger impact on attainment. We also find that the positive impact of better school quality on educational attainment and returns to education has been particularly significant for the individuals born in regions and cohorts with poorer family background. Parental education has had asymmetric effects, positive on attainment and negative on school returns. Better school quality has also had asymmetric effects on the returns to education, positive for individuals with poor family background and negative for individuals born in regions and cohorts with relatively high parental education. Our evidence suggests that better school quality, measured by a lower pupil–teacher ratio, is a technical substitute to parental education in the production of individual human capital. When school quality and family background are substitutes, an increase of public resources invested in education can be used to reduce the differences induced by parental education. [close]
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Epple, Dennis, Elizabeth Newlon and Richard Romano (2002).
Ability Tracking, School Competition, and the Distribution of Educational Benefits.
In: Journal of Public Economics
83(1)
, 01-48
.
Abstract.
Link.
To study the effects of ability grouping on school competition, we develop a theoretical and computational model of tracking in public and private schools. We examine tracking's consequences for the allocation of students of differing abilities and income within and between public and private schools. Private schools tend to attract the most able and wealthiest students, and rarely track in equilibrium. Public sector schools can maximize attendance by tracking students. Public schools retain a greater proportion of higher-ability students by tracking, but lose more wealthy, lower-ability students to the private sector. Consequently, socioeconomic status is a predictor of track assignment in public schools. For the entire population, public-sector tracking has small aggregate effects on achievement and welfare, but results in significant redistribution from lower- to higher-ability students. [close]
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Brunello, Giorgio and Massimo Giannini (2004).
Stratified or Comprehensive? The Economic Efficiency of School Design.
In: Scottish Journal of Political Economy
51(2)
, 173-193
.
Abstract.
Link.
We study the efficiency of secondary school design by focusing on the degree of differentiation between vocational and general education. Using a simple model of endogenous job composition, we analyze the interaction between relative demand and relative supply of skills and characterize efficient school design when the government runs schools and cares about total net output. We show that neither a comprehensive nor a stratified system unambiguously dominates the other system in terms of efficiency for all possible values of the underlying parameters. Since comprehensive systems generate more equal labour market outcomes, it follows that the relationship between efficiency and equity in secondary education is not necessarily a trade off. [close]
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Carnoy, Martin and Susan Loeb (2002).
Does External Accountability Affect Student Outcomes? A Cross-state Analysis. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
In: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
24(4)
, 305-331
.
Abstract.
Link.
We developed a zero-to-five index of the strength of accountability in 50 states based on the use of high-stakes testing to sanction and reward schools, and analyzed whether that index is related to student gains on the NAEP mathematics test in 1996–2000. The study also relates the index to changes in student retention in the 9th grade and to changes in high school completion rates over the same period. The results show that students in high-accountability states averaged significantly greater gains on the NAEP 8th-grade math test than students in states with little or no state measures to improve student performance. Furthermore, students in high-accountability states do not have significantly higher retention or lower high school completion rates. [close]
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Chen, Zhiqi and Edwin G. West (2000).
Selective Versus Universal Vouchers: Modeling Median Voter Preferences in Education.
In: American Economic Review
90(5)
, 1520-1534
.
Abstract.
Link.
Under the majority voting rule, a system of universally available vouchers (UV) is politically less feasible than a system of selective vouchers (SV) confined to families with incomes equal to or less than median voter income. After the introduction of UV, public expenditure on education will have to be shared with previous private school users. Per capita expenditure will then drop and/or tax will increase. Since these events will injure the median voter, he will reject UV. He will be indifferent between the status quo and SV. Indifference will turn into enthusiasm however, if, as can be expected, the new regime (SV) brings effective new competition. [close]
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Dixit, Avinash (2002).
Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretative Review.
In: Journal of Human Resources
37(4)
, 696-727
.
Abstract.
Link.
The paper begins with a brief overview of the theory of incentives, with special attention to issues that are important in the public sector, in general and human capital in particular. It then reviews some case studies and empirical studies of incentives in the public sector, examining how these studies relate to the theory. Some implications for reform and de- sign of organizations are drawn. [close]
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Bradley, Steve and Jim Taylor (2004).
The Economics of Secondary Schooling.
In: Geraint Johnes and Jill Johnes (eds.).
International Handbook on the Economics of Education.
Cheltenham:
Elgar
.
Link.
[close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2010).
Institutional Determinants of School Efficiency and Equity: German States as a Microcosm for OECD Countries.
In: Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik / Journal of Economics and Statistics
230(2)
, 234-270
.
Abstract.
Link.
Cross-country evidence on student achievement might be hampered by omitted country characteristics such as language or legal differences. This paper uses cross-state variation in Germany, whose sixteen states share the same language and legal system, but pursue different education policies. Education production function models are estimated using state-level PISA-E data, where possible pooling three subjects and three waves to obtain up to 138 test-score observations. The same results found previously across countries holdwithin Germany:Higher mean student performance is associated with central exams, private school operation, and socio- economic background, but not with spending, while higher equality of opportunity is associated with reduced tracking. In models that pool German states with OECD countries and combine up to 54 state and country observations, these institutional determinants do not differ significantly between the sample of German states and the sample of OECD countries, indicating that the existing cross-country evidence is not substantially biased by unobserved countryspecific factors. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2007).
International Evidence on School Competition, Autonomy and Accountability: A Review.
In: Peabody Journal of Education
82(2-3)
, 473-497
.
Abstract.
Link.
This article reviews evidence from four international student achievement tests on the effects on student performance of competition from privately managed schools, schools' freedom to make autonomous decisions, and accountability introduced by external exit exams. The multivariate cross-country regressions are performed at the level of individual students and control for extensive family and school background information. The results reveal that students perform better in countries with more competition from privately managed schools, in countries where public funding ensures that all families can make choices, in schools that have freedom to make autonomous process and personnel decisions, where teachers have both freedom and incentives to select appropriate teaching methods, where parents take interest in teaching matters, and where school autonomy is combined with external exams that provide an information basis allowing for well-informed choices and holding schools accountable for their autonomous decisions. [close]
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Ahlin, Åsa (2003).
Does School Competition Matter? Effects of a Large-Scale School Choice Reform on Student Performance.
Uppsala University - Department of Economics Working Paper 2003:2.
Abstract.
Link.
The effect of a general school choice reform on student performance is studied in a Swedish institutional setting. A rich set of individual level data allows estimation of a value added specification, mitigating problems with omission of relevant variables. Increased school competition is shown to have statistically significant positive effects on student performance in mathematics, but no significant effects in English and Swedish. Interacting school competition with student characteristics, the results indicate that immigrant students and those in need of special education tend to gain more from increased school competition than others, while adverse effects on students from low education families are found in terms of English and Swedish performance. However, quantile regressions indicate homogeneous effects on low and high performing students. [close]
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Bishop, John H. and Ludger Woessmann (2004).
Institutional Effects in a Simple Model of Educational Production.
In: Education Economics
12(1)
, 17-38
.
Abstract.
Link.
The paper presents a model of educational production which tries to make sense of recent evidence on effects of institutional arrangements on student performance. In a simple principal-agent framework, students choose their learning effort to maximize their net benefits, while the government chooses educational spending to maximize its net benefits. In the jointly determined equilibrium, schooling quality is shown to depend on several institutionally determined parameters. The impact on student performance of institutions such as central examinations, centralization versus school autonomy, teachers' influence, parental influence, and competition from private schools is analyzed. Furthermore, the model can rationalize why positive resource effects may be lacking in educational production. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger (2006).
Bildungspolitische Lehren aus den internationalen Schülertests: Wettbewerb, Autonomie und externe Leistungsüberprüfung.
In: Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik
7(3)
, 417-444
.
Abstract.
Link.
Evidence using micro data from four international student achievement tests shows that institutional features that ensure competition, autonomy and accountability in school systems are key to high student performance. The lessons that education policy can learn from the cross-country evidence include that students perform better (a) in countries with more competition from privately managed but publicly funded schools, (b) in schools with autonomy in process and personnel decisions, (c) if teachers have both incentives and powers to select appropriate teaching methods, (d) if parents take interest in teaching matters and (e) if students and schools are held accountable by external examinations. [close]
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Bradley, Steve, Geraint Johnes and Jim Millington (2001).
The Effect of Competition on the Efficiency of Secondary Schools in England.
In: European Journal of Operational Research
135(3)
, 545-568
.
Abstract.
Link.
In this paper we calculate the technical efficiencies, based upon multiple outputs – school exam performance and attendance rates – of all secondary schools in England over the period 1993–1998. We then estimate models to examine the determinants of efficiency in a particular year, and the determinants of the change in efficiency over the period. Our results suggest that the greater the degree of competition between schools the more efficient they are. The strength of this effect has also increased over time which is consistent with the evolution of the quasi-market in secondary education. Competition is also found to be an important determinant of the change in efficiency over time. There is, however, some evidence of conditional convergence between schools. [close]
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Betts, Julian R. and Jamie L. Shkolnik (2000).
The Effects of Ability Grouping on Student Achievement and Resource Allocation in Secondary Schools.
In: Economics of Education Review
19(1)
, 01-15
.
Abstract.
Link.
A school policy of grouping students by ability has little effect on average math achievement growth. Unlike earlier research, this paper also finds little or no differential effects of grouping for high-achieving, average, or low-achieving students. One explanation is that the allocation of students and resources into classes is remarkably similar between schools that claim to group and those that claim not to group. The examination of three school inputs: class size, teacher education, and teacher experience, indicates that both types of schools tailor resources to the class ability level in similar ways, for instance by putting low-achieving students into smaller classes. [close]
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Ballou, Dale (2001).
Pay for Performance in Public and Private Schools.
In: Economics of Education Review
20(1)
, 51-61
.
Abstract.
Link.
Previous research on teacher merit pay has concluded that its failure is due to the complexity of teachers' jobs and the need for teamwork and cooperation in schools. This research re-opens the issue by comparing the use of merit pay in public and private schools. Merit pay is used in a large number of private schools. Awards are not trivial; nor is it the case that merit pay is awarded to nearly everyone. Reasons for the failure of merit pay are not inherent in teaching, but are due to specific circumstances in public education, notably the opposition of teacher unions. [close]
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Woessmann, Ludger and Martin R. West (2008).
School Choice International: Higher Private School Share Boosts Test Scores.
In: Education Next
9(1)
, 54-61
.
Link.
[close]
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Machin, Stephen, Steve Gibbons and Olmo Silva (2008).
Choice, Competition and Pupil Achievement.
In: Journal of the European Economic Association
6(4)
, 912-947
.
Abstract.
Link.
Choice and competition in education have found growing support from both policy makers and academics in the recent past. Yet, evidence on the actual benefits of market-oriented reforms is at best mixed. Moreover, while the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear, in existing work there is rarely an attempt to distinguish between the two concepts. In this paper, we study whether pupils in Primary schools in England with a wider range of school choices achieve better academic outcomes than those whose choice is more limited; and whether Primary schools facing more competition perform better than those in a more monopolistic situation. In simple least squares regression models, we find little evidence of a link between choice and achievement, but uncover a small positive association between competition and school performance. Yet, this could be related to endogenous school location or pupil sorting. In fact, an instrumental variable strategy based on discontinuities generated by admissions district boundaries suggests that the performance gains from greater school competition are limited. Only when we restrict our attention to Faith autonomous schools, which have more freedom in managing their admission practices and governance, do we find evidence of a positive causal link between competition and pupil achievement. [close]
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Lavy, Victor (2006).
From Forced Busing to Free Choice in Public Schools: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of Individual and General Effects.
NBER Working Paper 11969.
Abstract.
Link.
In 1994 the city of Tel Aviv replaced its existing school integration program based on inter-district busing, with a new program that allowed students to choose freely between schools in and out of district. This paper explores the impact of this program on high school outcomes while distinguishing the effect of choice on individual students from general equilibrium effects on affected districts. The identification is based on a regression discontinuity design that yields comparison groups drawn from untreated tangent neighborhoods in adjacent cities and on instrumental variables. The results suggest that the choice program had significant general equilibrium effects on high school dropout rates, matriculation rates and program of study. The gains are more pronounced among disadvantaged children but not among students who took advantage of the option to attend out of district schools with higher mean outcomes. Based on these results and on other evidence on the behavioral responses of schools and students to the program suggest that the positive impact of the program relates mainly to better matching between students and schools and to the productivity effect of choice and competition among schools. [close]
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Lavy, Victor (2009).
Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics.
In: American Economic Review
99(5)
, 1979-2011
.
Abstract.
Link.
Performance-related incentive pay for teachers is being introduced in many countries, but there is little evidence of its effects. This paper evaluates a rank-order tournament among teachers of English, Hebrew, and mathematics in Israel. Teachers were rewarded with cash bonuses for improving their students' performance on high-school matriculation exams. Two identification strategies were used to estimate the program effects, a regression discontinuity design and propensity score matching. The regression discontinuity method exploits both a natural experiment stemming from measurement error in the assignment variable and a sharp discontinuity in the assignment-to-treatment variable. The results suggest that performance incentives have a significant effect on directly affected students with some minor spillover effects on untreated subjects. The improvements appear to derive from changes in teaching methods, after-school teaching, and increased responsiveness to students' needs. No evidence found for teachers' manipulation of test scores. The program appears to have been more cost-effective than school-group cash bonuses or extra instruction time and is as effective as cash bonuses for students. [close]
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Rothstein, Jesse (2007).
Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers? Comment.
In: American Economic Review
97(5)
, 2026-2037
.
Abstract.
Link.
In an influential paper, Hoxby (2000) studies the relationship between the degree of so-called "Tiebout choice" among local school districts within a metropolitan area and average test scores. She argues that choice is endogenous to school quality, and instruments with the number of larger and smaller streams. She finds a large positive effect of choice on test scores, which she interprets as evidence that school choice induces greater school productivity. This paper revisits Hoxby's analysis. I document several important errors in Hoxby's data and code. I also demonstrate that the estimated choice effect is extremely sensitive to the way that "larger streams" are coded. When Hoxby's hand count of larger streams is replaced with any of several alternative, easily replicable measures, there is no significant difference between IV and OLS, each of which indicates a choice effect near zero. There is thus little evidence that schools respond to Tiebout competition by raising productivity. [close]
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West, Martin R. and Paul E. Peterson (2006).
The Efficacy of Choice Threats within School Accountability Systems: Results from Legislatively-Induced Experiments.
In: Economic Journal
116(510)
, C46-C62
.
Abstract.
Link.
Targeted stigma and school voucher threats under a revised 2002 Florida accountability law have positive impacts on school performance as measured by the test score gains of their students. In contrast, stigma and public school choice threats under the US federal accountability law, No Child Left Behind, do not have similar effects in Florida. Estimation relies upon individual-level data and is based upon regression analyses that exploit discontinuities within the accountability regimes. Choice threats embedded within accountability regimes can moderate educational inequalities by boosting achievement at the lowest-performing schools, but policy design is crucial. [close]
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Schütz, Gabriela, Heinrich Ursprung and Ludger Woessmann (2008).
Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity.
In: Kyklos
61(2)
, 279-308
.
Abstract.
Link.
We provide a measure of equality of educational opportunity in 54 countries, estimated as the effect of family background on student performance in two international TIMSS tests. We then show how organizational features of the education system affect equality of educational opportunity. Our model predicts that late tracking and a long pre-school cycle are beneficial for equality, while pre-school enrollment is detrimental at low levels of enrollment and beneficial at higher levels. Using cross-country variations in education policies and their interaction with family background at the student level, we provide empirical evidence supportive of these predictions. [close]
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Hoxby, Caroline M. (2007).
Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers? Reply.
In: American Economic Review
97(5)
, 2038-2055
.
Abstract.
Link.
Rothstein has produced two comments, Rothstein (2003) and Rothstein (2004), on Hoxby "Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers," American Economic Review, 2000. In this paper, I discuss every claim of any importance in the comments. I show that every claim is wrong. I also discuss a number of Rothstein's innuendos--that is, claims that are made by implication rather than with the support of explicit arguments or evidence. I show that, when held up against the evidence, each innuendo proves to be false. One of the major points of Rothstein (2003) is that lagged school districts are a valid instrumental variable for today's school districts. This is not credible. Another major claim of Rothstein (2003) is that it is better to use highly non-representative achievement data based on students' self-selecting into test-taking than to use nationally representative achievement data. This claim is wrong for multiple reasons. The most important claim of Rothstein (2004) is that the results of Hoxby (2000) are not robust to including private school students in the sample. This is incorrect. While Rothstein appears merely to be adding private school students to the data, he actually substitutes error-prone data for error-free data on all students, generating substantial attenuation bias. He attributes the change in estimates to the addition of the private school students, but I show that the change in estimates is actually due to his using erroneous data for public school students. Another important claim in Rothstein (2004) that the results in Hoxby (2000) are not robust to associating streams with the metropolitan areas through which they flow rather than the metropolitan areas where they have their source. This is false: the results are virtually unchanged when the association is shifted from source to flow. Since 93.5 percent of streams flow only in the metropolitan area where they have their source, it would be surprising if the results did change much. The comments Rothstein (2003) and Rothstein (2004) are without merit. All of the data and code used in Hoxby (2000) are available to other researchers. An easy-to-use CD provides not only extracts and estimation code, but all of the raw data and the code for constructing the dataset. [close]
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Hanushek, Eric A., John F. Kain, Steven G. Rivkin and Gregory F. Branch (2007).
Charter School Quality and Parental Decision Making with School Choice.
In: Journal of Public Economics
91(5-6)
, 823-848
.
Abstract.
Link.
Charterschools have become a very popular instrument for reforming public schools, because they expand choices, facilitate local innovation, and provide incentives for the regular public schools while remaining under public control. Despite their conceptual appeal, analysis has been hindered by the selective nature of their student populations. This paper investigates the quality of charterschools in Texas in terms of mathematics and reading achievement and finds that average schoolquality in the charter sector is not significantly different from that in regular public schools after an initial start-up period but that there is considerable heterogeneity. Perhaps more important for policy, however, is the finding that the parentaldecision to exit a charterschool is significantly related to schoolquality. The magnitude of this relationship is substantially larger than the relationship between the probability of exit and quality in the regular public school sector and consistent with the notion that the introduction of charterschools substantially reduces the transactions costs of switching schools. [close]
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Falch, Torberg, Marte Rønning and Bjarne Strøm (2006).
A cost model of schools: School size, school structure and student composition.
In: N. Soguel and P. Jaccard (eds.).
Governance and performance of education systems.
Springer
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper analyses the relationship between school resources and school characteristics in compulsory schooling. We argue that it is inherently difficult to estimate a “cost function” that can predict how much it costs to deliver a given level of output in terms of student performance. The literature has not established a convincing positive relationship between school production and school financial resources. Instead, it is possible to estimate a reduced form model relating resource use per student to different school and student body characteristics, leaving aside school outputs from the model. By condition on school district fixed effects, effectively eliminating from the model variation in demand for education across school districts, this model can be interpreted as a within-district “allocation model” of school spending. We use data from Norway and find that resource use is diminishing within the whole range of school size observed. Further, the results clearly show that extra resources are allocated to minority students and students with special needs. [close]
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Fuchs, Thomas and Ludger Woessmann (2007).
What Accounts for International Differences in Student Performance? A Re-examination using PISA Data.
In: Empirical Economics
32(2-3)
, 433-464
.
Abstract.
Link.
We use the PISA student-level achievement database to estimate international education production functions. Student characteristics, family backgrounds, home inputs, resources, teachers and institutions are all significantly associated with math, science and reading achievement. Our models account for more than 85% of the between-country performance variation, with roughly 25% accruing to institutional variation. Student performance is higher with external exams and budget formulation, but also with school autonomy in textbook choice, hiring teachers and within-school budget allocations. Autonomy is more positively associated with performance in systems that have external exit exams. Students perform better in privately operated schools, but private funding is not decisive. [close]
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Clark, Damon (2009).
The Performance and Competitive Effects of School Autonomy.
In: Journal of Political Economy
117(4)
, 745-783
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper studies a recent British reform that allowed public high schools to opt out of local authority control and become autonomous schools funded directly by the central government. Schools seeking autonomy had only to propose and win a majority vote among current parents. Almost one in three high schools voted on autonomy between 1988 and 1997, and using a version of the regression discontinuity design, I find large achievement gains at schools in which the vote barely won compared to schools in which it barely lost. Despite other reforms that ensured that the British education system was, by international standards, highly competitive, a comparison of schools in the geographic neighborhoods of narrow vote winners and narrow vote losers suggests that these gains did not spill over. [close]
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Jepsen, Christopher and Steven Rivkin (2009).
Class Size Reduction and Student Achievement: The Potential Tradeoff between Teacher Quality and Class Size.
In: Journal of Human Resources
44(1)
, 223-250
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper investigates the effects of California’s billion-dollar class-size-reduction program on student achievement. It uses year-to-year differences in class size generated by variation in enrollment and the state’s class-size-reduction program to identify both the direct effects of smaller classes and related changes in teacher quality. Although the results show that smaller classes raised mathematics and reading achievement, they also show that the increase in the share of teachers with neither prior experience nor full certification dampened the benefits of smaller classes, particularly in schools with high shares of economically disadvantaged, minority students. [close]
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Kane, Thomas J. (2007).
Evaluating the Impact of the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program.
In: Journal of Human Resources
42(3)
, 555-582
.
Abstract.
Link.
The D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program dramatically changed college prices for District of Columbia residents, allowing them to pay in-state tuition at public institutions around the country. Between 1998 and 2000, the number of D.C. residents attending public institutions in Virginia and Maryland more than doubled; when public institutions in other states were added, this number again nearly doubled. The impact was largest at nonselective public four-year colleges, particularly predominantly black institutions. The total number of financial aid applicants, Pell Grant recipients, and college entrants from D.C. also increased by 15 percent or more. [close]
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Ferreyra, Maria M. (2007).
Estimating the Effects of Private School Vouchers in Multidistrict Economies.
In: American Economic Review
97(3)
, 789-817
.
Abstract.
Link.
This paper estimates a general equilibrium model of school quality and household residential and school choice for economies with multiple public school districts and private (religious and nonsectarian) schools. The estimates, obtained through full-solution methods, are used to simulate two large-scale private school voucher programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: universal vouchers and vouchers restricted to nonsectarian schools. In the simulations, both programs increase private school enrollment and affect household residential choice. Under nonsectarian vouchers, however, private school enrollment expands less than under universal vouchers, and religious school enrollment declines for large nonsectarian vouchers. Fewer households benefit from nonsectarian vouchers. [close]
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Brunello, Giorgio, Massimo Giannini and Kenn Ariga (2007).
The Optimal Timing of School Tracking.
In: Peterson, P. and Woessmann, L. (2007).
Schools and the Equal Opportunity Problem.
, 129-158
.
Abstract.
Link.
In this chapter, we develop a simple model which determines the optimal timing of school tracking as the outcome of the trade off between the advantages of specialization, which call for early tracking, and the costs of early selection, which call instead for later tracking. The optimal tracking time is the time which maximizes total output net of schooling costs. We calibrate the model for Germany and study how relative demand shifts toward more general skills and changes in the (exogenous) rate of technical progress affect the optimal tracking time as well as the allocation of students to schools. [close]
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Dee, Thomas S. and Brian A. Jacob (2011).
The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Student Achievement.
In: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
30(3)
, 418-446
.
Abstract.
Link.
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student achievement based on an analysis of state-level panel data on student test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The impact of NCLB is identified using a comparative interrupted time series analysis that relies on comparisons of the test-score changes across states that already had school accountability policies in place prior to NCLB and those that did not. Our results indicate that NCLB generated statistically significant increases in the average math performance of fourth graders (effect size 5 0.23 by 2007) as well as improvements at the lower and top percentiles. There is also evidence of improvements in eighth-grade math achievement, particularly among traditionally low-achieving groups and at the lower percentiles. However, we find no evidence that NCLB increased fourth-grade reading achievement. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [close]
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Bettinger, Eric and Robert Slonim (2006).
Using Experimental Economics to Measure the Effects of a Natural Educational Experiment on Altruism.
In: Journal of Public Economics
90(8-9)
, 1625-1648
.
Abstract.
Link.
Economic research examining how educational intervention programs affect primary and secondary schooling focuses largely on test scores although the interventions can affect many other outcomes. This paper examines how an educational intervention, a voucher program, affected students' altruism. The voucher program used a lottery to allocate scholarships among low-income applicant families with children in K-8th grade. By exploiting the lottery to identify the voucher effects, and using experimental economic methods, we measure the effects of the intervention on children’s altruism. We also measure the voucher program’s effects on parents' altruism and several academic outcomes including test scores. We find that the educational intervention positively affects students' altruism towards charitable organizations but not towards their peers. We fail to find statistically significant effects of the vouchers on parents' altruism or test scores. [close]