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Author: Vasudha Rangaprasad Publisher: ISBN: Category : Academic achievement Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
My dissertation examines the determinants of school quality and its impact on student achievement. The first essay studies the impact of class size on student achievement. The impact of class size on student achievement remains an open question despite hundreds of empirical studies and the perception amongst parents, teachers, and policymakers that larger classes are a significant detriment to student development. This essay attempts to shed new light on this ambiguity by explicitly recognizing the distributed nature of educational outcomes. This paper utilizes recently developed nonparametric tests for stochastic dominance to uniformly rank entire distributions of test scores. Moreover, by using bootstrap techniques, we are able to report the results of the dominance tests to a degree of statistical certainty. This type of analysis is very useful for policy decisions as it lends itself to broad-based, consensus ranking of outcomes. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we estimate the effects of eighth and tenth grade class size on the unconditional and conditional distributions of contemporaneous test scores, subsequent test scores, and test score gains. The results are quite surprising. First, after controlling for a host of determinants of student achievement, we find compelling evidence suggesting that students benefit from relatively large classes. Second, we document several instances where the relationship between student achievement and class size is non-monotonic. Finally, these conclusions are unaltered when we allow for heterogeneous effects of class size by student race or subject matter. In my second essay, I address questions regarding school competition using a spatial autoregressive model. Education reforms involving expanded school choice are receiving increased attention. Many view the heightened competition that would presumably result from such reforms as a panacea for the ills currently plaguing the US public education system. However, the present system is not devoid of competition even absent such reforms; public schools compete for students through the Tiebout (1956) process. Thus, this essay seeks to answer two questions: (i) Does competition alter the behavior of public school districts? and (ii) Do public school districts compete with neighboring public school districts? To answer such questions, we utilize panel data from Illinois over the period 1990-2000 and estimate a multi-dimensional mixed regressive, spatial autoregressive model via instrumental variables, thereby eliminating the possibility of confounding strategic competition with spatial error correlation. The data come from two sources: the Common Core of Data and the Census of Population and Housing. We find robust evidence that public school districts incorporate the educational input decisions of other public school districts in the same county into their decision calculus, thereby acting strategically when setting own input levels. Thus, reforms leading to expansion of school choice would not introduce competition into the US school system, but rather would at best accentuate the level of competition. The third essay examines the impact of peer group effects on student achievement. The current empirical evidence on the magnitude of these effects is, however, inconclusive. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I assess the impact of peer group influences on the test scores of tenth grade students using school-by-subject specific fixed effects models, as well as a Generalized Methods of Moments approach (via instrumental variables) to account for potential endogeneity of the peer group formation. The results are striking. In particular, I fail to uncover widespread evidence in favor of positive peer group effects. The OLS estimations yield strong and positive effects of peer group achievement on test score gains. When I account for potential endogeneity of peer group formation via instrumental variables and fixed effects these effects disappear. In addition, the dispersion of peer group achievement has no systematic influence on achievement growth. Moreover, I find no evidence supporting the hypothesis that peer effects have differential impacts in schools in which tracking is present. The only exception to the above findings is in models that control for both peer effects and tracking, and allow the effect of each to differ according to student ability. In this case, while the impact of tracking is not found to be substantially different in tracked versus nontracked schools, the results are consistent with a nonuniform effect of tracking on achievement across students of different abilities. Finally, these fundamental conclusions are not substantially altered when I allow for changes in the definitions of peer group effect and tracking.
Author: Vasudha Rangaprasad Publisher: ISBN: Category : Academic achievement Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
My dissertation examines the determinants of school quality and its impact on student achievement. The first essay studies the impact of class size on student achievement. The impact of class size on student achievement remains an open question despite hundreds of empirical studies and the perception amongst parents, teachers, and policymakers that larger classes are a significant detriment to student development. This essay attempts to shed new light on this ambiguity by explicitly recognizing the distributed nature of educational outcomes. This paper utilizes recently developed nonparametric tests for stochastic dominance to uniformly rank entire distributions of test scores. Moreover, by using bootstrap techniques, we are able to report the results of the dominance tests to a degree of statistical certainty. This type of analysis is very useful for policy decisions as it lends itself to broad-based, consensus ranking of outcomes. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we estimate the effects of eighth and tenth grade class size on the unconditional and conditional distributions of contemporaneous test scores, subsequent test scores, and test score gains. The results are quite surprising. First, after controlling for a host of determinants of student achievement, we find compelling evidence suggesting that students benefit from relatively large classes. Second, we document several instances where the relationship between student achievement and class size is non-monotonic. Finally, these conclusions are unaltered when we allow for heterogeneous effects of class size by student race or subject matter. In my second essay, I address questions regarding school competition using a spatial autoregressive model. Education reforms involving expanded school choice are receiving increased attention. Many view the heightened competition that would presumably result from such reforms as a panacea for the ills currently plaguing the US public education system. However, the present system is not devoid of competition even absent such reforms; public schools compete for students through the Tiebout (1956) process. Thus, this essay seeks to answer two questions: (i) Does competition alter the behavior of public school districts? and (ii) Do public school districts compete with neighboring public school districts? To answer such questions, we utilize panel data from Illinois over the period 1990-2000 and estimate a multi-dimensional mixed regressive, spatial autoregressive model via instrumental variables, thereby eliminating the possibility of confounding strategic competition with spatial error correlation. The data come from two sources: the Common Core of Data and the Census of Population and Housing. We find robust evidence that public school districts incorporate the educational input decisions of other public school districts in the same county into their decision calculus, thereby acting strategically when setting own input levels. Thus, reforms leading to expansion of school choice would not introduce competition into the US school system, but rather would at best accentuate the level of competition. The third essay examines the impact of peer group effects on student achievement. The current empirical evidence on the magnitude of these effects is, however, inconclusive. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I assess the impact of peer group influences on the test scores of tenth grade students using school-by-subject specific fixed effects models, as well as a Generalized Methods of Moments approach (via instrumental variables) to account for potential endogeneity of the peer group formation. The results are striking. In particular, I fail to uncover widespread evidence in favor of positive peer group effects. The OLS estimations yield strong and positive effects of peer group achievement on test score gains. When I account for potential endogeneity of peer group formation via instrumental variables and fixed effects these effects disappear. In addition, the dispersion of peer group achievement has no systematic influence on achievement growth. Moreover, I find no evidence supporting the hypothesis that peer effects have differential impacts in schools in which tracking is present. The only exception to the above findings is in models that control for both peer effects and tracking, and allow the effect of each to differ according to student ability. In this case, while the impact of tracking is not found to be substantially different in tracked versus nontracked schools, the results are consistent with a nonuniform effect of tracking on achievement across students of different abilities. Finally, these fundamental conclusions are not substantially altered when I allow for changes in the definitions of peer group effect and tracking.
Author: Lariece Monique Brown Publisher: ISBN: Category : Housing Languages : en Pages : 97
Book Description
Abstract: This dissertation explores the impact of school quality in housing markets through two distinct lines of research. The first is a housing market equilibrium study of house prices and the second is a partial equilibrium model of household utility maximization as revealed through household location. The first essay uses the hedonic house price approach with a sample of houses that have school district boundaries that may differ from the boundaries of the city. The model includes school district fixed effects, controls for city services, and neighborhood attributes. The school quality measure is important in explaining higher house prices and the estimated value of higher test scores is unaffected by various formulations that provide good controls for spatial variations in city services and neighborhood characteristics. The second essay is a discrete choice conditional logit model of household location. The choice of school district appears to be less about the presence of children and more about the sorting of households based on race, education, and income. Households do not choose school districts based on their children's characteristics; households with higher income purchase higher levels of school quality.
Author: Laura M. Crispin Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 173
Book Description
In my second chapter, I use alternative measures of class size to illustrate that inherent differences in these measures can partially explain the inconclusive evidence found in prior studies of the effect of class size on student outcomes. With data from the NELS:88 and ELS:2002, I use teacher-student ratios that vary in the level of aggregation (i.e., student, school, and state-level data) and in the types of teachers included (i.e., all teachers versus only teachers in specific subjects). I estimate multiple value-added education production functions of math achievement, each using an alternative class size measure, for two cohorts of public high school students to illustrate that identically constructed teacher-student ratios yield substantially different results over time. Overall, my findings show that the composition of teachers in the school varies substantially across schools and over time, indicating that the most commonly used measure of class size - the school's teacher-student ratio - may be a poor indicator of school quality, and that the core teacher-student ratio is likely to provide richer information about school quality than other class size measures.
Author: Publisher: ISBN: Category : Academic achievement Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
In the second essay, I study MATCH Charter Public School's initiative to incorporate two hours of individualized tutorials integrate throughout an extended school day. The unanticipated implementation of this initiative and the school's lottery enrollment policy allow me to use two complementary quasi-experimental methods to estimate program effects. I find that the additional time for tutorials increased achievement on 10 th grade English language arts (ELA) exams by 0.15-0.25 standard deviations per year. Lower-achieving students at MATCH experienced similar gain in mathematics achievement although I find no overall effect in mathematics beyond the large gains MATCH students were already making prior to the implementation of tutorials.
Author: John Warner Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 1421427117 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 285
Book Description
An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.
Author: Kehinde Funmilola Ajayi Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 206
Book Description
This dissertation consists of three studies which collectively seek to examine: what the barriers are to receiving a high-quality education in a merit-based school choice setting; how policy reforms can address these barriers; and what benefits students gain from attending a high-quality school. Altogether, the papers focus on understanding the role of socio-economic background in explaining differences in education-related decisions and student outcomes. Chapter 2 examines whether school choice programs increase opportunities for educational mobility or reinforce initial disparities in schooling. I address this question in the context of the public education system in Ghana, which uses standardized tests and a nation-wide application process to allocate 150,000 elementary school students to 650 secondary schools. As has been found in other settings, students from lower-performing elementary schools in Ghana apply to less selective secondary schools than students with the same test scores from higher-performing elementary schools. I consider four potential explanations for this behavior: differences in decision-making quality, imperfect information about admission chances, costs and accessibility of schooling, and preferences for school quality. I use detailed data from three cohorts of applicants to evaluate the relative importance of these explanations. My analysis suggests that differences in application behavior are largely due to poor decision-making and incorrect beliefs about admission chances, rather than differences in preferences or the costs and accessibility of schools. Building on the theoretical framework outlined in the preceding analysis, Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of institutional reforms in school choice settings. Focusing again on the case of Ghana, I estimate the effects of a series of reforms in the application process that expanded the number of choices students could list and encouraged students to select a diversified portfolio of schools. I use a difference-in-differences approach to analyze the effect of each reform and find that both reforms decreased the difference in selectivity of schools chosen by students from high-performing and low-performing elementary schools, which suggests that application and admission rules play a significant role in explaining differences in application behavior. Moreover, these results are consistent with a setting in which imperfect information has a strong impact on students' choices and the effects can both be explained as a consequence of uncertainty in the Ghanaian choice system. Chapter 4 uses a unique dataset on Ghana's education system to examine the effect of school quality on student outcomes. My analysis draws on exogenous variation in student assignment due to the fact that admission of elementary school students into secondary school in 2005 was based on students' ranking of their three most preferred choices and their performance on a standardized test. I compare students on different sides of the cutoff for admission to their lowest-ranked choice and find that students who are not admitted to their chosen school are assigned to schools of lower-quality and are less likely to complete secondary school. Additionally, these students are more likely to transfer out of their initially-assigned schools. However, those who do complete secondary school do not perform any worse on the exit exam several years later. Thus, students' behavioral responses to their admission outcomes appear to moderate the effects of school quality on educational attainment in this context.
Author: Christopher R. Walters Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
This dissertation consists of three essays covering topics in the economics of education. Two common threads connect these essays: first, a focus on the inputs and practices driving variation in effectiveness across educational programs; and second, an interest in the relationships between students' preferences, characteristics, and returns to human capital investment. In the first chapter, I develop and estimate a structural model of school choice that links students' decisions to apply to and attend charter schools in Boston, Massachusetts to their potential achievement test scores in charter schools and public schools. This chapter is motivated by a growing literature that uses randomized entrance lotteries to show that urban charter schools, including those in Boston, substantially increase test scores and close racial achievement gaps among their applicants. A key policy question is whether charter expansion is likely to produce similar effects on a larger scale. To address this question, I use the structural model to predict the effects of charter expansion for the citywide achievement distribution in Boston. Estimates of the model suggest that charter applicants are negatively selected on achievement gains: low-income students and students with low prior achievement gain the most from charter attendance, but are unlikely to apply to charter schools. This form of selection implies that lottery-based estimates understate gains for broader groups of students, and that charter schools will produce substantial gains for marginal applicants drawn in by expansion. Simulations suggest that realistic expansions are likely to reduce the gap in math scores between Boston and the rest of Massachusetts by up to 8 percent, and reduce racial achievement gaps by roughly 5 percent. Nevertheless, the estimates also imply that perceived application costs are high and that most students prefer traditional public schools to charter schools, so large expansions may leave many charter seats empty. These results suggest that in the absence of significant behavioral or institutional changes, the potential gains from charter expansion may be limited as much by demand as by supply. The second chapter, written jointly with Joshua Angrist and Parag Pathak, seeks to explain differences in effectiveness across charter schools. Using a large sample of lotteried applicants to charter schools throughout Massachusetts, we show that urban charter schools boost student achievement, while charter schools in other settings do not. We then explore student-level and school-level explanations for this difference. In an econometric framework that isolates sources of charter effect heterogeneity, we show that urban charter schools boost achievement well beyond that of urban public school students, while non-urban charters reduce achievement from a higher baseline. Student demographics explain some of these gains since urban charters are most effective for non-whites and low-baseline achievers. At the same time, non-urban charter schools are uniformly ineffective. Our estimates also reveal important school-level heterogeneity within the urban charter sample. A non-lottery analysis suggests that urban charters with binding, well-documented admissions lotteries generate larger score gains than under-subscribed urban charter schools with poor lottery records. Using a detailed survey of school practices and characteristics, we link charter impacts to inputs such as instructional time, classroom techniques and school philosophy. The relative effectiveness of urban lottery-sample charters is accounted for by these schools' embrace of the No Excuses approach to urban education, a package of policies that includes strict discipline, increased instructional time, selective teacher-hiring, and a focus on traditional skills. In the third chapter, I use data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS), a nationwide randomized trial of the Head Start program, to study the relationship between site-level treatment effects and educational inputs within Head Start. Studies of small-scale, intensive early-childhood programs, including the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project, show that such programs can have transformative effects on human capital and economic outcomes. Evidence for larger-scale programs like Head Start is more mixed. I use the HSIS data to ask whether Head Start centers using practices more similar to successful model programs produce larger short-run effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. My results show that while there is significant variation in effectiveness across Head Start centers, centers that are more similar to the Perry Preschool Project on observed dimensions are not more effective. Specifically, Head Start centers using the High/Scope curriculum, the centerpiece of the Perry experiment, do not produce larger gains relative to other centers. Other inputs often cited as essential to the success of the Perry Project, including teacher education, teacher certification, teacher/student ratios, instructional time, and frequency of home visiting, are also unrelated to effectiveness in Head Start. These results suggest that replicating the success of small-scale programs may be difficult, as the effectiveness of such programs may be due to idiosyncratic, unmeasured inputs. JEL Classification: 121, C51, J24
Author: Vasudha Rangaprasad
Author: Vasudha Rangaprasad
Author: Lariece Monique Brown
Author: Laura M. Crispin
Author: 
Author: Sanghoon Lee
Author: 
Author: John Warner
Author: Kehinde Funmilola Ajayi
Author: Christopher R. Walters
Author: Patrick John Bayer