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on Education |
| By: | Matias Busso; Sebastián Montaño; Juan S. Muñoz-Morales; Nolan G. Pope |
| Abstract: | Teacher quality is a key factor in improving student academic achievement. As such, educational policymakers strive to design systems to hire the most effective teachers. This paper examines the effects of a national policy reform in Colombia that established a merit-based teacher-hiring system intended to enhance teacher quality and improve student learning. Implemented in 2005 for all public schools, the policy ties teacher-hiring decisions to candidates’ performance on an exam evaluating subject-specific knowledge and teaching aptitude. The implementation of the policy led to many experienced contract teachers being replaced by high exam-performing novice teachers. We find that though the policy sharply increased pre-college test scores of teachers, it also decreased the overall stock of teacher experience and led to sharp decreases in students’ exam performance and educational attainment. Using a difference-in-differences strategy to compare the outcomes of students from public and private schools over two decades, we show that the hiring reform decreased students’ performance on high school exit exams by 8 percent of a standard deviation, and reduced the likelihood that students enroll in and graduate from college by more than 10 percent. The results underscore that relying exclusively on specific ex ante measures of teacher quality to screen candidates, particularly at the expense of teacher experience, may unintentionally reduce students’ learning gains. |
| JEL: | I25 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33008 |
| By: | Barrios-Fernandez, Andres (Universidad de los Andes); Neilson, Christopher A. (Princeton University); Zimmerman, Seth D. (Yale School of Management) |
| Abstract: | Do elite colleges help talented students join the social elite, or help incumbent elites retain their positions? We combine intergenerationally-linked data from Chile with a regression discontinuity design to show that, looking across generations, elite colleges do both. Lower-status individuals who gain admission to elite college programs transform their children's social environment. Children become more likely to attend high-status private schools and colleges, and to live near and befriend high-status peers. In contrast, academic achievement is unaffected. Simulations combining descriptive and quasi-experimental findings show that elite colleges tighten the link between social and human capital while decreasing intergenerational social mobility. |
| Keywords: | elite universities, intergenerational mobility, human capital, social capital |
| JEL: | I24 D64 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17252 |
| By: | Wright, Jacob (University of Minnesota); Zheng, Angela (McMaster University) |
| Abstract: | Across all education levels, policymakers are using the re-sorting of students to diversify the socioeconomic composition of student bodies. We study how these integration policies interact, using a heterogeneous agent overlapping generations model featuring multiple periods of human capital development. Households sort into public schools through housing location, and into college via a competitive admissions process. Quality of schools and colleges are endogenous through peer effects. At the public school level, we simulate an integration policy that randomly shifts students across schools. For college, we consider an income-based affirmative action policy. Public school integration weakens the link between residential location and school quality, increasing intergenerational mobility by 2.5%. On the other hand, the college policy decreases intergenerational mobility by 0.7%: when the high-quality college reserves seats for low-income students, it makes college more competitive, which increases sorting at the public school level. In fact, an integration policy that combines public school re-sorting and college affirmative action leads to minimal changes in upwards mobility. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, sorting, integration |
| JEL: | I2 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17301 |
| By: | Ronak Jain; Samuel Stemper |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of global expansions in mobile internet access between 2000 and 2018 on student outcomes. We link geospatial data on the rollout of 3G mobile technology with over 2.5 million student test scores from 82 countries. Our findings indicate that the introduction of 3G coverage leads to substantial increases in smartphone ownership and internet usage among adolescents. Changes in 3G coverage lead to significant declines in test scores in math, reading, and science, with magnitudes roughly equivalent to the loss of one-quarter of a year of learning. We also find evidence of a reduction in the ease of making friends and a sense of belonging. |
| JEL: | I21 I25 I31 J24 L86 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:453 |