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Do Accountability and Voucher Threats Improve Low-Performing Schools? NBER Working Paper No. 11597
- Source :
-
National Bureau of Economic Research . 2005. - Publication Year :
- 2005
-
Abstract
- In this paper we study the effects of the threat of school vouchers and school stigma in Florida on the performance of "low-performing" schools using student-level data from a subset of districts. Estimates of the change in school-level high-stakes test scores from the first year of the reform are consistent with the early results used by the state of Florida to claim large-scale improvements associated with the threat of voucher assignment. However, we also find that much of this estimated effect may be due to other factors. While we estimate a small relative improvement in reading scores on the high-stakes test for voucher-threatened stigmatized schools, we estimate a much smaller relative improvement on a lower-stakes, nationally norm-referenced, test. Further, the relative gains in reading scores are explained largely by changing student characteristics. We find more evidence for a positive differential effect on math test scores on both the low- and high-stakes tests, however, the results from the lower-stakes test appear primarily limited to students in the high-stakes grade. Finally, we find some evidence that the relative improvements following the introduction of the A Plan by low-performing schools were more due to the stigma of receiving the low grade rather than the threat of vouchers.
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- ERIC
- Journal :
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- ED490839
- Document Type :
- Information Analyses<br />Reports - Research