Nber Working Paper Series Cramming: the Effects of School Accountability on College-bound Students

This paper is the first to explore the effects of school accountability systems on high-achieving students' long-term performance. Using exceptional data from a large highly-selective state university, we relate school accountability pressure in high school to a student's university-level grades and study habits. We exploit a change in the state's accountability system in 1999 that led to some schools becoming newlythreatened by accountability pressure and others becoming newly-unthreatened to identify the effects of accountability pressure. We find that an accountability system based on a low-level test of basic skills apparently led to generally reduced performance by high-achieving students, while an accountability system based on a more challenging criterion-referenced exam apparently led to improved performance in college on mathematics and other technical subjects. Both types of systems are associated with increased "cramming" by students in college. The results indicate that the nature of an accountability system can influence its effectiveness. Colleen Donovan Department of Economics University of California, Berkely Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] David N. Figlio Department of Economics University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611-7140 and NBER [email protected] Mark Rush University of Florida Warrington College of Business Department of Economics P.O. Box 117140 320 MAT Gainesville, FL 32611-7140 [email protected]