Search

Many districts and states have implemented incentives to recruit teachers to low-performing schools, and previous research has found evidence that these incentives are effective at attracting teachers. However, effects on the schools and students these teachers leave behind have not been examined. This study focuses on the spillover effects of recruiting effective teachers to Tennessee’s Innovation Zone (iZone) schools. We find the short-term effects of losing these teachers range from −0.04 to −0.12 SDs in student test score gains, with larger negative effects when more effective teachers leave. However, combining both these negative effects in schools teachers leave and the positive effects in iZone schools yields overall net positive effects.

One of the controversies surrounding charter schools is whether these schools may either “cream skim” high-performing students from traditional public schools or “pushout” low-achieving students or students with discipline histories, leaving traditional public schools to educate the most challenging students. In this study, we use longitudinal statewide data from Tennessee and North Carolina and linear probability models to examine whether there is evidence consistent with these selective enrollment practices. Because school choice programs managed by districts (magnet and open enrollment programs) have a similar ability to cream skim and pushout students, we also examine these outcomes for these programs. Across the various school choice programs, magnet schools have the most evidence of cream skimming, but this might be expected as they often have selective admissions. For charter schools, we do not find patterns in the data consistent with cream skimming, but we do find evidence consistent with pushout behaviors based on discipline records. Finally, some have raised concerns that students may be pushed out near accountability test dates, but our results suggest no evidence consistent with this claim.

Purpose: While previous research has examined the impact of school turnaround models, less is known about the principals who lead these turnaround schools. This study examines the personal demographics, experience, educational background, prior school performance, salaries, and turnover of principals who led two turnaround models in Tennessee's lowest performing schools: a state-run Achievement School District (ASD) that has not yielded positive nor negative effects and local Innovation Zones (iZones) that averaged positive effects on student achievement over six years. Methods: We analyze longitudinal, administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Education from 2006–2007 to 2017–2018 to compare pre- and post-reform means and trends in principal characteristics between ASD, iZone, and similarly low-performing comparison schools. Results: ASD schools had higher principal turnover rates and lost principals whose schools performed higher while iZone schools retained more principals and lost principals whose schools performed lower. Moreover, iZone schools employed more experienced principals, more Black principals, and principals with higher graduate degree attainment and paid their principals more than ASD schools. Salary differences between ASD and iZone schools were not explained by principals’ characteristics, such as years of experience. Implications: Our findings reveal differences in leadership characteristics between iZone and ASD schools that were consistent with differences in the effectiveness of the two turnaround approaches.

Attracting and retaining teachers can be an important ingredient in improving low-performing schools. In this study, we estimate the expressed preferences for teachers who have worked in low-performing schools in Tennessee. Using adaptive conjoint analysis survey design, we examine three types of school attributes that may influence teachers’ employment decisions: fixed school characteristics, structural features of employment, and malleable school processes. We find that teachers express a strong preference for two malleable school processes, administrative support and discipline enforcement, along with a higher salary, a structural feature. Estimates indicate these attributes are 2 to 3 times more important to teachers than fixed school characteristics like prior achievement. We validate our results using administrative data on teachers’ revealed preferences.

A growing body of research evaluates the effects of turnaround on chronically low-performing schools. We extend this literature by formally testing factors that may either mediate or suppress the effects of two turnaround initiatives in Tennessee: the Achievement School District (ASD) and local Innovation Zones (iZones). Using difference-in-differences models within a mediational framework, we find that hiring effective teachers and principals partially explains positive iZone effects. In the ASD, high levels of teacher turnover suppress potential positive effects. Also, in iZone schools, increased levels of student mobility and chronic absenteeism suppress potentially larger positive effects. Policies that increase capacity within turnaround schools, such as financial incentives for effective staff, appear to be important ingredients for realizing positive effects from turnaround reforms.

This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Previous evidence suggests that schools can be reopened safely if community spread is low and public health guidelines are followed. However, in Texas, reopenings often occurred alongside high community spread and at near capacity, making it difficult to meet social distancing recommendations. Using event-study models and hand-collected instruction modality and start dates for all school districts, we find robust evidence that reopening Texas schools gradually but substantially accelerated the community spread of COVID-19. Results from our preferred specification imply that school reopenings led to at least 43,000 additional COVID-19 cases and 800 additional fatalities within the first two months. We then use SafeGraph mobility data to provide evidence that spillovers to adults’ behaviors contributed to these large effects. Median time spent outside the home on a typical weekday increased substantially in neighborhoods with large numbers of school-age children, suggesting a return to in-person work or increased outside-of-home leisure activities among parents.

Recently, there has been a move towards K-8 schools as opposed to separate elementary and middle schools, especially among urban districts. In this paper, we examine the effect of enrollment in separate elementary and middle schools relative to enrollment in a K-8 school using longitudinal data from an anonymous district in the United States. The choice to enroll in a K-8 or separate elementary and middle schools is potentially endogenous. While previous research has taken steps to address the possible endogeneity when estimating the effects for separate middle schools, previous research has not addressed the possible endogeneity when examining the effect at the elementary level. Without generating an unbiased estimate during the elementary grades, we cannot fully understand the impact of policies that have shifted the grade arrangement of separate elementary and middle schools to K-8 schools. In this paper, we employ a research design that leverages the fact that the anonymous district closed several schools and rezoned their students to other schools with new boundaries. We compare students on the side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a separate middle or elementary school to students on the other side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a K-8 school. When taking into the consideration the effect at the elementary level, our results are much less supportive of a K-8 policy than previous research.

In recent years, the federal government has invested billions of dollars to reform chronically low-performing schools. To fulfill their federal Race to the Top grant agreement, Tennessee implemented three turnaround strategies that adhered to the federal restart and transformation models: (a) placed schools under the auspices of the Achievement School District (ASD), which directly managed them; (b) placed schools under the ASD, which arranged for management by a charter management organization; and (c) placed schools under the management of a district Innovation Zone (iZone) with additional resources and autonomy. We examine the effects of each strategy and find that iZone schools, which were separately managed by three districts, substantially improved student achievement. In schools under the auspices of the ASD, student achievement did not improve or worsen. This suggests that it is possible to improve schools without removing them from the governance of a school district.

Within the research community, there is a vigorous debate over whether additional educational expenditures will lead to improved performance of schools. Some of the debate is an outgrowth of the lack of causal knowledge of the impacts of expenditures on student outcomes. To help fill this void, we examine the causal impact of capital expenditures on school district proficiency rates in Michigan. For the analysis, we employ a regression discontinuity design where we use the outcomes of bond elections as the forcing variable. Our results provide some evidence that capital expenditures can have positive effects on student proficiency levels.

Since their inception in 1992, the number of charter schools has grown to more than 6,800 nationally, serving nearly three million students. Various studies have examined charter schools’ impacts on test scores, and a few have begun to examine longer-term outcomes including graduation and college attendance. This paper is the first to estimate charter schools’ effects on earnings in adulthood, alongside effects on educational attainment. Using data from Florida, we first confirm previous research (Booker et al., 2011) that students attending charter high schools are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college. We then examine two longer-term outcomes not previously studied in research on charter schools—college persistence and earnings. We find that students attending charter high schools are more likely to persist in college, and that in their mid-20s they experience higher earnings. C

Recent evaluations of reforms to improve low-performing schools have almost exclusively focused on shorter term effects. In this study, we extend the literature by examining the sustainability and maturation of two turnaround models in Tennessee: the state-led Achievement School District (ASD) and district-led local Innovation Zones (iZones). Using difference-in-differences models, we find overall positive effects on student achievement in iZone schools and null effects in ASD schools. Additional findings suggest a linkage between staff turnover and the effectiveness of reforms. ASD schools experienced high staff turnover in every cohort, and iZone schools faced high turnover in its latest cohort, the only one with negative effects. We discuss how differences in the ASD and iZone interventions may help explain variation in the schools’ ability to recruit and retain effective teachers and principals.

School choice programs continue to be controversial, spurring a number of researchers into evaluating them. When possible, researchers evaluate the effect of attending a school of choice using randomized designs to eliminate possible selection bias. Randomized designs are often thought of as the gold standard for research, but many circumstances can limit external validity of inferences from these designs in the context of school choice programs. In this article, we examine whether these limitations are applicable to previous evaluations of voucher, charter schools, magnet, and open-enrollment programs. We devise simple sensitivity analyses that researchers could conduct when analyzing lotteried programs to determine whether there are reasons to be cautious about the breadth of appropriate inferences.

In the academic and policy debates over the merits of charter schools, two things are clear: First, they are here to stay and, second, their quality varies widely. Policy makers therefore need to understand how to design charter laws that promote the creation of high-performing schools. Crucial to this discussion is the charter authorizing process, which varies across the nation. In some states, authorizing power is held exclusively by local school districts, whereas other states allow a range of authorizers that may include not only local districts, but also nonprofit organizations, counties, higher educational institutions, or a state agency. In this paper we use individual student-level data from Ohio, which permits a wide range of organizations to authorize charter schools, to examine the relationship between type of authorizer and charter-school effectiveness as measured by students’ achievement trajectories. © 2014 Association for Education Finance and Policy

A major concern among opponents to charter schools is whether these schools will serve all students. Some have raised concerns that charter schools will “push out” low-achieving students in hopes of improving the schools’ academic profile while minimizing costs by educating fewer challenging students. In this article, we use data from an anonymous major urban school district to examine whether we see exit patterns consistent with the claim that charter schools are more likely to push out low-achieving students than are traditional public schools (TPSs). Overall, we find no empirical evidence to support the notion of push-out.

As school choice options have evolved over recent years, it is important to understand what family and school factors are associated with the enrollment decisions families make. Use of restricted-access data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study allowed us to identify household location from a nationally representative sample of students and to match households to the actual schools attended and other nearby schools. This matching is significant as previous research generally has not been able to link individual households to school enrollment decisions. Using these data, we examined the role that socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity play in school enrollment decisions. One of our more interesting results suggests that the newest public alternative, charter schools, attracts families with higher socioeconomic status than those that traditional public schools attract. The attraction of charter schools, however, unlike traditional public schools, appears to be racially and ethnically neutral. Families do not choose a charter school because of its racial or ethnic composition, nor do race and ethnicity within a household influence its choice of charter schools. Other socioeconomic factors influencing charter school choice are more similar to factors explaining private school choice than to those factors explaining the choice of traditional public schools. The findings suggest that policies governing the design of charter schools should focus on broader socioeconomic diversity rather than race only. C � 2013 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Since their inception, charter schools have been a lighting rod for controversy, with much of the debate revolving around their effectiveness in improving student achievement. Previous research has shown mixed results for student achievement; this could be the consequence of different policy environments or varying methodological approaches with differing assumptions across studies. In our analysis, we discuss these approaches and their assumptions and estimate charter school achievement effects using a consistent methodology across seven locations.

The first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 and with it, a new school reform movement began. After two decades, 41 states and Washington D.C. have adopted charter legislation. This special issue provides an opportunity for scholars to reflect upon the promises and limitations of charter schools and to offer policy advice for those in a position to influence future reforms. Together, the papers within this special issue examine the achievement effects of charter schools, their cost effectiveness, the competitive pressure created by charter schools, the degree to which charter schools are innovative and how some of the operational and policy features of charter schools may affect outcomes.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has created pressure for districts to improve their students’ proficiency levels on state tests. Districts that fail to meet their academic targets for 3 years must use their Title I funds to pay for supplemental education services (SES) that provide tutoring or other academic instruction. Many districts, including the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), have also adopted additional tutoring programs designed to help students reach proficiency goals. This paper examines student participation and achievement in two PPS tutoring programs—the NCLB-mandated SES program and a state-developed tutoring program. We examine the characteristics of students participating in each program, the effects of participation on student achievement, and the program features that are associated with improved achievement.

A premise of charter school initiatives has been that these schools have direct benefits for the students attending them and indirect benefits for other students by creating competition for traditional public schools to improve their performance. This study uses a two-pronged approach to assess whether California charter schools are having indirect effects on students in traditional public schools. First, we examine how traditional public school principals react to the introduction of charter schools. Second, we assess whether competition from nearby charters is affecting student achievement outcomes for students that remain in traditional public schools. The survey results show that traditional public school principals felt little competitive pressure from charters. Similarly, the student achievement analysis shows that charter competition was not improving the performance of traditional public schools. These results suggest that California charter schools are having little effect on the climate of traditional public schools.

The size of schools and districts in which they are located has become a salient policy issue in recent years. While consolidation of school districts and expanding high school size were in vogue from the 1960s until recently, funding agencies are now sponsoring projects to reduce school size under the assumption that smaller schools will lead to higher academic achievement. There has been some scholarly work that focuses on the effects of size on achievement and recently, this literature has included district size and the competitive effects that size might generate on educational outcomes. In this paper, we focus explicitly on both district size and school size and look at a particular aspect of educational output. We argue that average daily attendance (ADA) is an output variable that is influenced by the enrollment in a school and the number of schools in a district. School attendance is critical to both achievement and dropout rates and is a directly measurable attribute of schooling. We use data from Texas schools and school districts to estimate size effects on this important policy variable.

The charter school movement is nearing its 25th anniversary, making this an opportune time to take stock of the movement by addressing the following questions: Where do charter schools locate? Who do they serve? Who manages them? Who teaches in them? Most importantly, what are the effects of charter schools on the academic performance of students who enroll in charters and on students who remain in traditional public schools? We review research findings that shed light on these questions.

Within the research community, there is a vigorous debate over whether additional educational expenditures will lead to improved performance of schools. Some of the debate is an outgrowth of the lack of causal knowledge of the impacts of expenditures on student outcomes. To help fill this void, we examine the causal impact of capital expenditures on school district proficiency rates in Michigan using bond referendum election outcomes as a threshold for regression discontinuity design. Our results provide some evidence that capital expenditures can have positive effects on student proficiency levels.

In recent years, a series of articles have examined the performance of charter schools with mixed results. Some of this research has shown that charter school performance varies by charter type or the age of the school (Bifulco & Ladd, 2006; Buddin & Zimmer, 2005; Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 2002; Sass, 2006). However, this research has not examined the school attributes that lead to high- or low-achieving charter schools. In this article, we examine how student achievement varies with school operational features using student-level achievement and survey data for charter and a matched-set of traditional public schools from California. We did not find operational characteristics that were consistently related with student achievement, but we did identify some features that are more important at different grade levels or in charter schools versus in traditional public schools. We also examined the relationship between greater autonomy within schools, which is a major tenet of the charter movement, and studen...

INTRODUCTION Advocates for greater school choice have long hailed school vouchers as a mechanism for improving educational systems. Th ese advocates argue that market incentives, created through the competition for students, can induce all schools to be more eff ective and effi cient while creating greater educational opportunities for low-income families and, possibly, increasing racial and socioeconomic integration within schools.

In the national effort to improve educational achievement, urban districts offer the greatest challenge as they often serve the most disadvantaged students. Many urban leaders, including mayors and school district superintendents, have initiated charter schools, which are publicly supported, autonomously operated schools of choice, as a mechanism of improving learning for these disadvantaged students. In this analysis, we examine the effect charter schools are having on student achievement generally, and on different demographic groups, in two major urban districts in California. Student achievement results suggest that charter schools are having mixed overall effects and generally not promoting student achievement for minorities.

Since the inception of charter schools over a decade ago, policymakers have wanted to know how charter schools are performing.

1. IntroductionIn an effort to create greater equity among school districts, a number of states have shifted the responsibility for school funding from local school districts to the state. Although many researchers have found that centralizing funding for public schools has been successful in creating greater equity (Murray, Evans, and Schwab 1998; Moser and Rubenstein 2002), other researchers have pointed out that centralizing funding can lead to unintended consequences. For example, Fischel (1989, 1992) suggests that families in wealthier districts, which have a stronger demand for education, are no longer able to match their preference for education under a system of equalized funding. In some cases, this may drive parents to seek private school alternatives (Downes and Schoeman 1998).1 In other cases, families meet their preferences by making private contributions to public schools (Sonstelie and Brunner 1997). Furthermore, Theobald and Picus (1991) argue that centralizing funding forces education, as a state service, to compete with other state services for funds, and as a result, the growth rate of spending per pupil decreases over time.2 These articles illustrate that policies designed to centralize control of public school funding can produce unintended consequences.In this article, we introduce into the literature an additional consequence caused by centralizing control of school funding. We argue that centralized control of public school funding with the objective to equalize operating expenditures (i.e., salaries, supplies, and other ongoing expenses) across school districts while leaving capital acquisitions (i.e., purchases of school buildings and other facilities) under local control results in resource-rich school districts becoming more reliant on debt financing.3 We find empirical support for this theory using data in the state of Michigan during its transition to a centralized school financing system in 1994.In the next section, we present an overview of Michigan's move to a centralized funding policy. In the third section, we present the regression model used to test the theory, followed by the description of the data and the estimated results. The final section of the study summarizes our findings.2. Overview of Michigan's Educational SystemIn 1993, a legislative anomaly lead to an abrupt change in the method of financing public education in Michigan. Prior to 1993, Michigan had one of the most locally controlled school systems in the United States. Over 65% of school operating expenditures came from local revenues, whereas the remaining 35% were derived from state and federal sources (Courant, Gramlich, and Loeb 1995). Property owners argued that local reliance on property taxes created an excessive burden and voiced their complaints to state representatives. Attempts to lower these taxes were defeated annually until Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat senator and candidate for governor, frustrated with the tax debate, proposed an absurdity to eliminate all property taxes without suggesting an alternative funding mechanism (Courant and Loeb 1997). Astonishingly, the legislature passed her bill, leaving the public school system with no means of funding. Seizing an opportunity to create greater equity among school districts, Michigan officials quickly devised a centralized system of financing public school operations, known as Proposal A, that reduces districts' reliance on local property taxes by increasing the state's sales tax. Integrated into Proposal A is a distribution formula that reduces the disparity in operating expenditures across high- and low-spending school districts, in part, by constraining the allocation of operating funds for high-spending districts.However, Proposal A does not affect local control of funding for capital projects (Watkins 2002). Michigan's state operating budget typically provides less than 5% of the total revenue needed to service school debt and no revenue for capital expenditures. …

I. INTRODUCTION Currently, there is a large theoretical and empirical literature that has examined the demand and supply of publicly provided goods and services (Bergstrom and Goodman, 1973; Inman, 1978; Bergstrom et al., 1982; Rubinfield and Shapiro, 1989). This literature has formed the foundation for an understanding of the mechanisms of publicly provided goods and services. Intertwined in this literature are evolving theories of intergovernmental relationships and the effect these relationship has on the provision of publicly provided goods and services. Collectively, this research has helped articulate broad themes on the appropriate roles of governments and the efficient provision of publicly provided goods and services. However, this research has been underutilized in determining the appropriate provision of specific services. In this current research, the authors examine a specific federal program, the Department of Education's Impact Aid program, and draw on the existing literature of the provision public services to estimate the adequacy of funding. The results have direct implications for the Impact Aid program, but the analysis also has implications for the provision of other government services and as an empirical example of the effect of intergovernmental aid programs. Overview of Impact Aid Program The Impact Aid, originally created in 1950, (1) is a nearly $1 billion program constructed to reimburse local school districts for federal activity within the districts. These activities could include the placement of federal employees and their families on or near nontaxable federal property, which could create two adverse effects for the school district. First, federally connected students may create an additional cost burden for a local school district, and second, the school district may have a reduced tax base. On this premise, the federal government reimburses the school district through Impact Aid for the additional burden federal activities create within the district. Currently, the program provides funds for 1.2 million children in over 1400 school districts nationwide; as a result, the program not only affects students directly associated with these federal activities, such as children that live on Indian reservations and military bases, but also all other students who attend schools within these districts. Of the various activities, military bases plays an important role of the Impact Aid program. Impact Aid supports a portion of the education expenditures for 416,000 military-related students attending public schools operated by the local school district. About 37% of these students reside on military bases that are not subject to local property taxes. The remainder resides in local communities and support local schools explicitly through property taxes (if homeowners) or implicitly through rental payments (if renters). Both on- and off-base military residents work on federal facilities and do not contribute directly to the local tax bases through levies on their employment site. Finally, all military members have access to on-base shopping facilities that do not collect local sales taxes. The premise of Impact Aid payments is that military families are not paying their fair share of local school revenues because they are insulated from a portion of the local tax liability. The primary schooling option for military families assigned in the United States is the local public school system. (2) Most military-related children live in civilian communities and attend nearby schools like their civilian counterparts. Children in on-base residences generally attend an on-base school that is operated by the school district for the nearby community. The Impact Aid law has received bipartisan support, but there has been continuing debate over whether the program reimburses local school districts adequately. In this current research, the authors draw on the existing literature of publicly provided goods and services to estimate the adequacy of funding for the publicly provided Impact Aid program. …

Recently, the practice of tracking has been receiving more attention by both educators and researchers and some have questioned the policy merit. One of the strongest arguments against tracking is that it creates homogenous classes according to ability and, therefore, reduces the positive spillover effect referred to as a peer effect. While peer effects have been found to be an important input into the production of education no study has specifically examined whether these effects are more or less prevalent in classes where tracking occurs. Utilizing individual student level data, this current research examines whether the peer effect occurs in cases in which tracking is present. The results suggest that the use of tracking diminishes the impact peers have on student achievement for low- and average-ability students while the peer effect is unaffected by tracking for high-ability students.

Recently, there has been a move towards K-8 schools as opposed to stand-alone middle schools. We examine the effect of enrollment in a stand-alone middle school relative to a K-8 school using a longitudinal data from an anonymous district, by the school closure and reassignment that provide us an opportunity to address the endogeneity that arises not only from moving between schools, but also from the original choice of type of school. We then compare these results to the results we obtain from the same IV approach used by the previous research, which only controls for the endogeneity of middle school choice in grade 5. The results from the geographic boundary approach are less supportive of a K-8 policy than the results we obtain from the IV approach.

While a growing body of literature on education production looks at the impact school inputs have on academic achievement, virtually no research is examining the impact capital is having on academic achievement. In this study, we take an initial step towards that end. By using school districts' level of bond indebtedness as a proxy for capital, we find evidence that capital stock does affect academic achievement. In light of these findings along with the general lack of research on capital inputs, we conclude that capital expenditures should be given greater attention in future research.

Many argue that the composition of a school or classroom-that is, the characteristics of the students themselves-affect the educational attainment of an individual student. This influence of the students in a classroom is often referred to as a peer effect. There have been few systematic studies that empirically examine the peer effect in the educational process. In this research, we examine the peer effect with a unique data set that includes individual student achievement scores and comprehensive characteristics of the students' families, teachers, other school characteristics, and peers for five countries. The data allow an examination of peer effects in both private and public schools in all countries. Our analysis indicates that peer effects are a significant determinant of educational achievement; the effects of peers appear to be greater for low-ability students than for high-ability students. The finding is robust across countries but not robust across school type. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

This issue brief discusses a new analysis, using data from Florida and Chicago, suggesting that charter high schools are not only increasing postsecondary educational attainment but may also boost students' long-run earnings.

Since their inception in 1992, the number of charter schools has grown to more than 6,000 in 40 states, serving more than 2 million students. Various studies have examined charter schools’ impacts on test scores, and a few have begun to examine longer-term outcomes including graduation and college attendance. This paper is the first to estimate charter schools’ effects on student earnings, alongside effects on educational attainment. Using data from Chicago and Florida, we find evidence that charter high schools may have substantial positive effects on persistence in college as well as high-school graduation and college entry. In Florida, where we can link students to workforce data in adulthood, we also find evidence that charter high schools produce large positive effects on subsequent earnings.

In the last decade, many cities around the country have needed to close schools due to declining enrollments and low achievement. School closings raise concerns about the possible negative impacts on student achievement, neighborhoods, families, and teaching staff. This study examines an anonymous urban district that, faced with declining enrollment, chose to make student achievement a major criterion in determining which schools would be closed. The district targeted low-performing schools in its closure plan, and sought to move their students to higher-performing schools. We estimate the impact of school closures on student test scores and attendance rates by comparing the growth of these measures among students differentially affected by the closures. We use residential assignment to school as an instrument to address non-random sorting of students into new schools. We also statistically control for the contemporaneous effects of other reforms within the district. Results show that students displaced by school closures can experience adverse effects on test scores and attendance, but these effects can be minimized when students move to schools that are higher-performing (in value-added terms). Moreover, the negative effect on attendance disappears after the first year in the new school. Meanwhile, we find no adverse effects on students in the schools that are receiving the transferring students.

This paper examines the impact of a gifted program on retention in an urban school district using a regression discontinuity design. Gifted programs often employ IQ thresholds for admission, with those above the threshold being admitted. One common problem with the RD design arises if the forcing variable (the IQ score) is manipulated, thus invalidating the standard research design. We proposed a modified RD estimator that deals with manipulation in the forcing variable. Once we properly correct for manipulation of test scores around the cut-off points, we find evidence that the gifted program offered by the district has a positive effect on retention of higher income students.

This paper examines the impact of a gifted program on retention in an urban school district using a regression discontinuity design. Gifted programs often employ IQ thresholds for admission, with those above the threshold being admitted. One common problem with the RD design arises if the forcing variable (the IQ score) is manipulated, thus invalidating the standard research design. We proposed a modified RD estimator that deals with manipulation in the forcing variable. Once we properly correct for manipulation of test scores around the cut-off points, we find evidence that the gifted program offered by the district has a positive effect on retention of higher income students.

Charter schools are an educational reform that provides alternatives to the traditional public school system for students and parents. They are granted greater autonomy for management of the school but are subjected to greater accountability for results. In this chapter, we tackle four contentious policy issues surrounding these schools of choice. First, we examine the profile of students attending charter schools and how this affects the profile of students in traditional public schools. We then compare funding between charter schools and traditional public schools. Next, we review the literature on the effects charter schools have had on the achievement of their students. Lastly, we ask how charter school competition has affected the performance of traditional public schools.