Textbook Economics
Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials
Roland Fryer
NBER Working Paper, April 2010
Abstract:
This paper describes a series of school-based randomized trials in over 250 urban schools designed to test the impact of financial incentives on student achievement. In stark contrast to simple economic models, our results suggest that student incentives increase achievement when the rewards are given for inputs to the educational production function, but incentives tied to output are not effective. Relative to popular education reforms of the past few decades, student incentives based on inputs produce similar gains in achievement at lower costs. Qualitative data suggest that incentives for inputs may be more effective because students do not know the educational production function, and thus have little clue how to turn their excitement about rewards into achievement. Several other models, including lack of self-control, complementary inputs in production, or the unpredictability of outputs, are also consistent with the experimental data.
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Unintended Consequences: No Child Left Behind and the Allocation of School Leaders
Danielle Li
MIT Working Paper, April 2010
Abstract:
Relatively little is known about the effect of school accountability on school leadership. This paper investigates the impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on principal mobility and the subsequent distribution of principal quality across schools. Using variation in pre-period student demographics to identify schools that are likely to miss performance targets, I show that NCLB decreases average principal quality at disadvantaged schools by encouraging high ability principals at these schools to migrate to schools less likely to face NCLB sanctions. These results are consistent with a model of principal-school matching in which school districts are unable to compensate principals for the increased likelihood of sanctions at disadvantaged schools.
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Abdul Munasib & Samrat Bhattacharya
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is widespread belief that exposure to television has harmful effects on children's cognitive development. Most studies that point to a negative correlation between hours of television watching and cognitive outcomes, fail to establish causality. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) we study young children between 5 and 10 years of age during late 1990 s and early 2000 s. We find strong evidence of negative correlations between hours of television watched and cognitive test scores. However, once parent's characteristics and unobserved child characteristics are taken into account these correlations go away. We find that hours of television viewed per se do not have any measurable impact on children's test scores. Our results are robust to different model specifications and instrumental variable estimates. We conclude that despite the conventional wisdom and the ongoing populist movement, proactive policies to reduce children's television exposure are not likely to improve children's cognitive development and academic performance.
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Increasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States
John Bound, Michael Lovenheim & Sarah Turner
NBER Working Paper, April 2010
Abstract:
Time to completion of the baccalaureate degree has increased markedly in the United States over the last three decades, even as the wage premium for college graduates has continued to rise. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972 and the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, we show that the increase in time to degree is localized among those who begin their postsecondary education at public colleges outside the most selective universities. In addition, we find evidence that the increases in time to degree were more marked amongst low income students. We consider several potential explanations for these trends. First, we find no evidence that changes in the college preparedness or the demographic composition of degree recipients can account for the observed increases. Instead, our results suggest that declines in collegiate resources in the less-selective public sector increased time to degree. Furthermore, we present evidence of increased hours of employment among students, which is consistent with students working more to meet rising college costs and likely increases time to degree by crowding out time spent on academic pursuits.
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Growing Pains: The School Consolidation Movement and Student Outcomes
Christopher Berry & Martin West
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, April 2010, Pages 1-29
Abstract:
Between 1930 and 1970, average school size in the United States increased from 87 to 440 students and average district size increased from 170 to 2300 students, as over 120,000 schools and 100,000 districts were eliminated through consolidation. We exploit variation in the timing of consolidation across states to estimate the effects of changing school and district size on student outcomes using data from the Public-Use Micro-Sample of the 1980 US census. Students educated in states with smaller schools obtained higher returns to education and completed more years of schooling. Reduced form estimates confirm that students from states with larger schools earned significantly lower wages later in life. Although larger districts were associated with modestly higher returns to education and increased educational attainment in most specifications, any gains from the consolidation of districts were far outweighed by the harmful effects of larger schools.
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Christine Roch, David Pitts & Ignacio Navarro
Administration & Society, March 2010, Pages 38-65
Abstract:
This article examines how racial and ethnic representation influences the tools that public officials use in designing policy. We use Schneider and Ingram's policy tools framework to empirically test how racial and ethnic representation affects student discipline outcomes in a sample of Georgia public schools. We find that schools with balanced racial and ethnic representation are more likely to adopt learning-oriented discipline policies, whereas those with imbalanced representation are more likely to implement sanction-oriented policies. The results demonstrate that representation is an important lever in policy design, with broad social and political consequences that extend beyond the immediate organization.
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Teacher MA Attainment Rates, 1970-2000
Eric Larsen
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The share of female teachers in the U.S. with an MA more than doubled between 1970 and 2000. These increases are puzzling, as they are much larger than those of other college-educated women, and they occurred over a period of declining teacher aptitude. I estimate the contribution of changes in teacher demographic characteristics, increases in the returns to an MA, and changes in teacher certification requirements to increases in teacher MA attainment rates. I find that the majority of the rise in attainment not attributable to secular trends and increases in the average age of teachers can be explained by increases in the returns to an MA among teachers. The increase in MA returns among teachers presents a second puzzle, as there is little evidence that master's degrees increase teacher productivity.
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The Uneven Rise of American Public Schools to 1850
Sun Go & Peter Lindert
Journal of Economic History, March 2010, Pages 1-26
Abstract:
Three factors help to explain why school enrollments in the Northern United States were higher than those in the South and in most of Europe by 1850. One was affordability: the northern schools had lower direct costs relative to income. The second was the greater autonomy of local governments. The third was the greater diffusion of voting power among the citizenry in much of the North, especially in rural communities. The distribution of local political voice appears to be a robust predictor of tax support and enrollments, both within and between regions. Extra local voice raised tax support without crowding out private support for education.
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Michael Schoderbek & Yaw Mensah
Rutgers Working Paper, February 2010
Abstract:
In this study we theorize that student achievement varies cross-sectionally with the percentage of school district revenues raised from local taxes and with salary levels of school district administrators (Superintendents and Principals). This theory is tested using a sample of 218 Kindergarten - Grade 12 school districts in the state of New Jersey. Our regression model includes sixteen variables to explain student achievement scores on standardized exams on Language and Mathematics from years 2001-2006. We find that increases to the percent of school funds raised locally has a positive influence on test scores, consistent with agency models that suggest local property tax funding (opposed to centralized financing) provide a disciplinary mechanism to improve the quality of output from local public good providers (Hoxby 1999). Consistent with our predictions, we find that higher administrative salaries are associated with higher test scores. But we also find that other costs of administration (excluding salaries) are associated with lower test scores. Taken in combination, these results help explain the mixed findings in prior studies that explore the nexus between administrative costs and student achievement.
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Instructional Conditions in Charter Schools and Students' Mathematics Achievement Gains
Mark Berends, Ellen Goldring, Marc Stein & Xiu Cravens
American Journal of Education, May 2010, Pages 303-335
Abstract:
Since charter school research on student achievement is mixed, many researchers and policy makers advocate looking inside the "black box" of schools to better understand the conditions under which schools of choice may be effective. We begin to address this issue with data from charter schools and a comparison group of traditional public schools. We also conduct propensity score matching at the student level to further understand achievement gains. In our analyses of these data, we find no charter school effects on students' achievement gains. Instructional conditions, such as teachers' focus on academic achievement, are related to mathematics gains. However, we find that our innovation measure is negatively associated with gains (when other conditions are controlled for), which suggests that innovation for innovation's sake should not be the sole focus of schools, whether charter or not.
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They Spend What? The Real Cost of Public Schools
Adam Schaeffer
Cato Institute Working Paper, March 2010
Abstract:
Although public schools are usually the biggest item in state and local budgets, spending figures provided by public school officials and reported in the media often leave out major costs of education and thus understate what is actually spent. To document the phenomenon, this paper reviews district budgets and state records for the nation's five largest metro areas and the District of Columbia. It reveals that, on average, per-pupil spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than officially reported. Real spending per pupil ranges from a low of nearly $12,000 in the Phoenix area schools to a high of nearly $27,000 in the New York metro area. The gap between real and reported per-pupil spending ranges from a low of 23 percent in the Chicago area to a high of 90 percent in the Los Angeles metro region. To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school. Citizens drastically underestimate current per-student spending and are misled by official figures. Taxpayers cannot make informed decisions about public school funding unless they know how much districts currently spend. And with state budgets stretched thin, it is more crucial than ever to carefully allocate every tax dollar. This paper therefore presents model legislation that would bring transparency to school district budgets and enable citizens and legislators to hold the K-12 public education system accountable.
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Children's Home Environments in Great Britain and the United States
Lori Ann Campbell & Toby Parcel
Journal of Family Issues, May 2010, Pages 559-584
Abstract:
This study analyzes the effects of human, social, and financial capital on children's home environments in the United States and Great Britain by comparing a sample of 5- to 13-year-old children from the United States with a similar sample from Britain. In both countries, the authors find weaker home environments for boys, minority children, and those with more siblings. Parental education and maternal cognitive ability are linked to stronger home environments. The effects of family structure, maternal school track, grandparents' education, and paternal work vary by society. The authors conclude that parents are important in both societies and that evidence for the notion that the more developed welfare state in Britain may substitute for capital at home in promoting children's home environments is weak.
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"A Right Sort of Man": Gender, Class Identity, and Social Reform in Late-Victorian Britain
Sascha Auerbach
Journal of Policy History, Winter 2010, Pages 64-94
"The Education Act of 1870 (a.k.a the "Forster Act") marked a watershed in the history of the Victorian state. With its passage, England finally joined the other major European states in their adoption of public elementary schooling for all children. The act divided the country into 2,500 school districts, each to have a governing school board elected by local ratepayers. At both the national and local levels, however, there was great concern over the government's expanded role in the home, over the fate of England's extensive parochial school system, and over whether elementary schooling should be paid for directly by parents or indirectly through taxes. Some measure of compelling attendance was also deemed necessary, particularly for the poorest of England's working classes, by those across the socioeconomic spectrum who supported universal primary education. The newly elected school boards were therefore authorized to create their own bylaws regarding school fees and the mechanisms of compulsion in their districts. Because of a lack of consensus among policymakers on the education issue, school fees were not eliminated until 1891, and compulsory attendance did not become national policy until 1880. In a nation where Liberal ideals and the right of individuals to be free from government interference were widely championed, compulsion was an especially problematic subject, and not one that the members of the first School Board for London (LSB) approached lightly."
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Suburban Legend: School Cutoff Dates and the Timing of Births
Stacy Dickert-Conlin & Todd Elder
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many states require children to reach age five by a specified date in the calendar year in order to begin kindergarten. We use birth certificate records from 1999 to 2004 to assess whether parents systematically time childbirth before these eligibility cutoff dates to capture the option value of sending their child to school at a relatively young age, thereby avoiding a year of child care costs. Testing for discontinuities in the distribution of births around cutoff dates, we find no evidence that the option value influences the timing of birth. Similarly, we find no systematic discontinuities in average mothers' characteristics or babies' health outcomes around cutoff dates. Timing in the neighborhood of eligibility cutoffs occurs only when the cutoffs coincide with weekends or holidays, which may have implications for recent research that assumes birth dates in the neighborhood of cutoffs are essentially randomly assigned.
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Andrew Horowitz, Jungmin Lee & Julie Trivitt
Journal of Human Capital, Fall 2009, Pages 197-223
Abstract:
Most studies of U.S. education borrowing constraints are based on an individual male household member and find that they have little effect on educational attainment. We argue that the correct unit of analysis is the attainment of all sibling intrahousehold resource rivals. We use the male college attendance return shock associated with Vietnam War conscription risk as a quasi‐natural experiment. In credit‐constrained households, scarce education resources should shift toward at‐risk males and manifest in lower attainment by resource rival sisters. We find significantly lower attendance among rival sisters. Our findings cast doubt on assertions that borrowing constraints do not affect attainment.
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The Impact of Public Library Use on Reading, Television, and Academic Outcomes
Rachana Bhatt
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do individuals engage in beneficial activities, like recreational reading, if the necessary materials are easily accessible and relatively inexpensive? I investigate this issue by estimating how much reading time increases as a result of public library use. To address the endogeneity of library use I use an IV approach where the instrument is a household's distance to their closest public library. Using data from the Current Population Survey, American Time Use Survey, and National Household Education Survey, I find that library use increases the amount of time an individual spends reading by approximately 27 minutes on an average day. Moreover, it increases the amount of time parents spend reading to/with young children by 14 minutes. This increase in reading is more than offset by a 59 minute decrease in time spent watching television, and there is no significant change in time spent on other activities. For children in school, library use positively impacts homework completion rates. A simple cost-benefit exercise highlights the potential application of these results for local governments who fund these libraries.
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Education and selective vouchers
Amedeo Piolatto
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
A widely accepted result in the literature is that the majority of voters are against the introduction of universal vouchers. Chen and West (2000) predict that voters' attitudes towards selective vouchers (SV) may be different. They claim that voters are indifferent between the no-voucher and SV regimes, unless competition leads to a reduction in the education price. I show that, when public schools are congested, the majority of voters are in favour of SV. Furthermore, SV induces a Pareto improvement. In equilibrium, the introduction of SV induces a reduction in income stratification at school, with some relatively poor students attending private schools.