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on Education |
| By: | Elizabeth Setren |
| Abstract: | School assignment policies are a key lever to increase access to high performing schools and to promote racial and socioeconomic integration. For over 50 years, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) has bussed students of color from Boston, Massachusetts to relatively wealthier and predominantly White suburbs. Using a combination of digitized historical records and administrative data, I analyze the short and long run effects of attending a high-performing suburban school for applicants to the METCO program. I compare those with and without offers to enroll in suburban schools. I use a two-stage least squares approach that utilizes the waitlist assignment priorities and controls for a rich set of characteristics from birth records and application data. Attending a suburban school boosts 10th grade Math and English test scores by 0.13 and 0.21 standard deviations respectively. The program reduces dropout rates by 75 percent and increases on-time high school graduation by 13 percentage points. The suburban schools increase four-year college aspirations by 17 percentage points and enrollment by 21 percentage points. Participation results in a 12 percentage point increase in four-year college graduation rates. Enrollment increases average earnings at age 35 by $16, 250. Evidence of tracking to lower performing classes in the suburban schools suggests these effects could be larger with access to more advanced coursework. Effects are strongest for students whose parents did not graduate college. |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I23 I24 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11320 |
| By: | Edmark, Karin (Stockholm University); Hussain, Iftikhar (University of Sussex); Haelermans, Carla (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | Research on voucher schools has mainly focused on whether students experience improved academic results in these schools and whether they generate competitive pressure for public schools. In this paper we focus instead on the role voucher schools might play in altering the menu of options available to students, for example with respect to vocational and academic tracks for adolescents. The setting for this paper is the period of rapid expansion of voucher schools in Sweden. Exploiting fine‐grained geographical information on students’ home location as well as variation in exposure across siblings, we uncover new evidence demonstrating that the introduction of voucher schools induces greater vocational education participation, and not simply a substitution of public for private vocational schools. In effect, voucher school penetration leads to a switch away from academic tracks, including academic science subjects, in favor of vocational options. We then assess the impact on medium‐ and long‐term outcomes. The results demonstrate that voucher school penetration has a negative impact on the probability that the highest qualification is in a STEM subject by age 30. The results also reveal a negative impact on long‐term labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Private provision; independent schools; voucher school reform; vocational education; upper secondary education. |
| JEL: | H44 I21 I26 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–10–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2024_017 |
| By: | Cueto, Santiago; Beuermann, Diether; Cristia, Julian P.; Malamud, Ofer; Pardo, Francisco |
| Abstract: | This paper examines a large-scale randomized evaluation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in 531 rural primary schools, as implemented by the Peruvian government starting in 2009. We use administrative and survey data on academic achievement and grade progression through 2019 to estimate the long-run effects of educational technology on i) academic performance and grade progression in schools over time and ii) student trajectories as they progress from primary school to university. We find negative and significant effects on completing primary and secondary education on time but no effects on achievement. We find positive and significant impacts on students' computer skills but no effects on broader cognitive skills. Information on teacher training and computer utilization suggests limited benefits of providing educational technology without sufficient pedagogical support. |
| Keywords: | Education;technology;Evaluation |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13786 |
| By: | Banerjee, Ritwik (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore); Blunch, Niels-Hugo (Washington and Lee University); Cassese, Daniele (University of Cambridge); Datta Gupta, Nabanita (Aarhus University); Pin, Paolo (University of Siena) |
| Abstract: | An enduring question in education is whether team-based peer learning methods help improve learning outcomes among students. We randomly assign around 10, 000 middle school students in Karnataka, India, to alternative peer learning treatments in Math and English that vary the intensity of collaboration. Teamwork with co-coaching outperforms simple teamwork and incentive treatments by increasing the test scores by about 0.25 standard deviation, but only in Math. This is both statistically and economically significant for students at the bottom of the ability distribution. We develop theoretical conditions under which teamwork with co-coaching outperforms simple teamwork as a peer-learning method. |
| Keywords: | cooperative learning methods, jigsaw, peer effects |
| JEL: | I20 I24 C93 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17362 |
| By: | Fairlie, Robert W. (University of California, Los Angeles); Oliver, Daniel (Washington State Student Achievement Council); Millhauser, Glenn (University of California, Santa Cruz); Roland, Randa (University of California, Santa Cruz) |
| Abstract: | An extensive literature in the social sciences analyzes peer effects among students, but estimation is complicated by several major problems some of which cannot be solved even with random assignment. We design a field experiment and propose a new estimation technique to address these estimation problems including the mechanical problems associated with repeated observations within peer groups noted by Angrist (2014). The field experiment randomly assigns students to one-to-one partnerships in an important gateway STEM course at a large public university. We find no evidence of peer effects from estimates of exogenous peer effect models. We push further and estimate outcome-on-outcome models which sometimes reveal peer effects when exogenous models do not provide good proxies for ability. We find some limited evidence of small, positive outcome-on-outcome peer effects (which would have been missed without our new estimation technique). Standard estimation methods fail to detect peer effects and even return negative estimates in our Monte Carlo simulations because of the downward bias due to mechanical problems. Simulations reveal additional advantages of our technique especially when peer group sizes are fixed. Estimates of non-linear effects, heterogeneous effects, and different measures of peer ability and outcomes reveal mostly null effects but we find some evidence that low-ability peers negatively affect low-ability and medium-ability students. The findings in this setting of long-term, intensive interactions with classroom random assignment and "throwing everything at it" provide evidence of, at most, small positive peer effects contrasting with the common finding of large peer effects in previous studies in education. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, higher education, STEM, field experiment |
| JEL: | I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17358 |