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Research Areas
Educational accountability
Full Abstract
School closures are increasingly common among U.S. public schools, driven by both budgetary constraints and accountability pressures to turnaround low-performing schools. This paper contributes to the nascent literature on school closures by evaluating student achievement and mobility outcomes in a large-scale restructuring effort in Washington, D.C. in which 32 elementary and middle school campuses were closed or consolidated in the summer of 2008. Using longitudinal data, we investigate how student outcomes change in relation to this initiative with an instrumental variables strategy that counters the endogeneity of student assignment across schools before and after the restructuring occurred. The results show that the academic performance of students directly affected by the school restructuring experienced a temporary decline, but it rebounded by the second school year after restructuring occurred. Additionally, we find no evidence of closure adversely inducing further mobility among affected students.
Citation: Umut Özek, Michael Hansen, Thomas Gonzalez (2012). A Leg Up or a Boot Out?: Student Achievement and Mobility under School Restructuring. CALDER Working Paper No. 78
Full Abstract
Increasing parental choice has been a leading theme of recent education policy intended to enhance the academic achievement of low-performing students in the United States. These policies aim to “level the playing field” in access to high-quality education for disadvantaged students who cannot otherwise afford higher-quality schooling options. Public school choice programs in D.C. are successful; disadvantaged students are able to attend higher-performing schools than their neighborhood public schools, even with prolonged commutes. Overall, the findings provide evidence that the relatively advantaged students are taking advantage of public school choice programs. However, choice exacerbates student quality disparities between low- and high-poverty schools, casting some doubt on the benefits of such programs.
Citation: Umut Özek (2011). Public School Choice in the District of Columbia: A Descriptive Analysis. CALDER Policy Brief No. 130 411
Full Abstract
Struggling schools that come under increased accountability pressure face a number of challenges, including changing instructional policies and practices to facilitate student improvement. But what effect does school accountability have on teachers’ mobility decisions? This study is the first to exploit policy variation within the same state to examine the effects of school accountability on teacher job changes. Using student-level data from Florida State the authors measure the degree to which schools and teachers were “surprised” by the change in Florida’s school grading system (A+ Plan for Education) in the summer of 2002— what they refer to as an “accountability shock.” They observed the mobility decisions of teachers in the years before and after the school grading change and found over half of all schools in the state experienced an accountability “shock” due to this grading change. Teachers were more likely to leave schools facing increased accountability pressure; even more likely to leave schools shocked downward to a grade of “F”; and less likely to leave schools facing decreased accountability pressure. Schools facing increased accountability pressure also saw a rise in the average quality of the teachers who stayed. If these schools were able to retain more of their high- quality teachers, perhaps through increased incentives to remain in the school, the performance gains associated with school accountability pressure could be greater than those already observed.
Citation: Li Feng, David Figlio, Tim Sass (2010). School Accountability and Teacher Mobility. CALDER Working Paper No. 47
Full Abstract
Voucher options like tuition tax credit-funded scholarship programs have become increasingly popular in recent years. This study examines the effects of private school competition on public school students’ test scores in the wake of Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC) program which offered scholarships to eligible low-income students to attend private schools. The authors examine whether students in schools exposed to a more competitive private school landscape saw greater improvements in their students’ test scores after the introduction of the program, than did students in schools that faced less competition. Students in public schools faced with increased private school competition showed greater gains in test scores than students in other public schools with the introduction of the program. These findings are not an artifact of pre-policy trends; the degree of competition from nearby private schools matters only after the announcement of the new program, which makes nearby private competitors more affordable for eligible students. The gains appear to be much more pronounced in the schools most at risk of losing students and in the schools that are on the margin of Title I funding.
Citation: David Figlio, Cassandra Hart (2010). Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers. CALDER Working Paper No. 46
Full Abstract
This paper analyzes households' response to the introduction of intra-district school choice and examines the impact of this choice on student test scores in Pinellas County Schools, one of the largest school districts in the United States. Households react strongly to the incentives created by such programs, leading to significant changes in the frequency of exercising alternative public schooling options, as well as changes in the composition of the "opt out" students. However, using proximity to public alternatives as an instrument for opting out of the assigned public school, the author finds no significant benefit of opting out on student achievement and that those who opt out of their default public schools often perform significantly worse on standardized tests than similar students who stay behind. The results further suggest that the short-run detrimental effects of opting out are stronger for students who opt out closer to the terminal grade of the school level. Yet the detrimental effects are weaker for disadvantaged students, who typically constitute the proposed target of school choice reforms.
Citation: Umut Özek (2009). The Effects of Open Enrollment on School Choice and Student Outcomes. CALDER Working Paper No. 26
Full Abstract
No Child Left Behind judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status. However, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a ten-year student-level panel dataset from North Carolina, we examine how school-specific pressure related to two school accountability approaches (status and growth) affects student achievement at different points in the prior-year achievement distribution. Achievement gains for students below the proficiency cut point emerge in response to both types of accountability systems. We find little or no evidence that schools in North Carolina ignore students far below proficiency under either approach. Importantly, we find that the status, but not the growth, approach reduces the reading achievement of higher performing students, with the losses in the aggregate exceeding the gains at the bottom. The distributional effects of accountability pressure depend on the type of pressure for which schools are held accountable and the tested subject.
Citation: Helen Ladd, Douglas Lauen (2009). Status vs. Growth: The Distributional Effects of School Accountability Policies. CALDER Working Paper No. 21
Full Abstract
This paper uses evidence from Durham, North Carolina to examine the impact of school choice on racial and class-based segregation across schools. The findings suggest that school choice increases segregation. Furthermore, the effects of choice on segregation by class are larger than the effects on segregation by race. These results are consistent with the theoretical argument—developed in sociology and economics literature—that the segregating choices of students from advantaged backgrounds are likely to outweigh any integrating choices by disadvantaged students.
Citation: Robert Bifulco, Helen Ladd, Stephen Ross (2008). Public School Choice and Integration: Evidence from Durham, North Carolina. CALDER Working Paper No. 14
Full Abstract
This paper examines the effect of accountability policy on school practices and student outcomes with remarkably comprehensive and detailed data that include a multi-wave five-year survey of the census of public schools in Florida and administrative data on individual student performance over time. The authors show that low-performing schools facing accountability pressure changed their instructional practices in meaningful ways. In addition, they present medium-run evidence school accountability promotes improved student test scores, and find that a significant portion of these test score gains can likely be attributed to the changes in school policies and practices uncovered in these surveys.
Citation: Cecilia Rouse, Jane Hannaway, Dan Goldhaber, David Figlio (2007). Feeling the Florida Heat?: How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure. CALDER Working Paper No. 13