Nber Working Paper Series Ability-grouping and Academic Inequality: Evidence from Rule-based Student Assignments
نویسندگان
چکیده
In Trinidad and Tobago students are assigned to secondary schools after fifth grade based on achievement tests, leading to large differences in the school environments to which students of differing initial levels of achievement are exposed. Using both a regression discontinuity design and rule-based instrumental variables to address self-selection bias, I find that being assigned to a school with higher-achieving peers has large positive effects on examination performance. These effects are about twice as large for girls than for boys. This suggests that ability-grouping reinforces achievement differences by assigning the weakest students to schools that provide the least value-added. C. Kirabo Jackson Cornell University, ILR School Department of Labor Economics Ives Hall East Ithaca, NY 14853-3901 and NBER [email protected]
منابع مشابه
Nber Working Paper Series the Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries
School choice has become an increasingly prominent strategy for urban school districts seeking to enhance academic achievement. Evaluating the impact of such programs is complicated by the fact that a highly select sample of students takes advantage of these programs. To overcome this difficulty, we exploit randomized lotteries that determine high school admission in the Chicago Public Schools....
متن کاملNber Working Paper Series Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: a Cross-subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects
We use data on statewide end-of-course tests in North Carolina to examine the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement at the high school level. The availability of test scores in multiple subjects for each student permits us to estimate a model with student fixed effects, which helps minimize any bias associated with the non-random distribution of teachers and students ...
متن کاملNber Working Paper Series Principals as Agents: Subjective Performance Measurement in Education
In this paper, we compare subjective principal assessments of teachers to the traditional determinants of teacher compensation – education and experience – and another potential compensation mechanism -value-added measures of teacher effectiveness based on student achievement gains. We find that subjective principal assessments of teachers predict future student achievement significantly better...
متن کاملNber Working Paper Series Rational Ignorance in Education: a Field Experiment in Student Plagiarism
Despite the concern that student plagiarism has become increasingly common, there is relatively little objective data on the prevalence or determinants of this illicit behavior. This study presents the results of a natural field experiment designed to address these questions. Over 1,200 papers were collected from the students in undergraduate courses at a selective post-secondary institution. S...
متن کاملNber Working Paper Series Distributional Effects of a School Voucher Program: Evidence from New York City
We use quantile treatment effects estimation to examine the consequences of a school voucher experiment across the distribution of student achievement. In 1997, the School Choice Scholarship Foundation granted $1,400 private school vouchers to a randomly-selected group of low-income New York City elementary school students. Prior research indicates that this program had no average effect on stu...
متن کامل