Horizontal Differentiation and the Policy Effect of Charter Schools

While school choice may enhance competition, incentives for public schools to raise productivity may be muted if public education is imperfectly substitutable with alternatives. This paper estimates the aggregate effect of charter school expansion on education quality while accounting for the horizontal differentiation of charter programs. Our research design leverages variation following the removal of North Carolina’s statewide cap to compare test score changes for students who lived near entering charters to those farther away. We find learning gains that are driven by public schools responding to increased competition from non-horizontally differentiated charter schools, even before those charters actually open. (JEL H75, I21, I28)

The impact of research evidence on education policy: How Members of Parliament respond to evidence in relation to secondary selective education

A detailed analysis of Hansard transcripts was undertaken to explore the dialogue used in parliamentary debates and committee meetings where reference was made to grammar schools between October 2015 to March 2019. During this period, the first new grammar school for fifty years had been approved, along with the establishment of the £50 million selective school expansion fund. Detailed qualitative analysis highlighted the widely disproportionate use of the term 'good' in relation to grammar schools. It is argued that 'good' instead of 'outstanding' or 'excellent' is chosen in relation to grammar schools as 'good' has moral overtones that go beyond reported educational standards. Proportionately, the number of comprehensive schools rated good or outstanding would need to be referred to in conjunction with 'good' 6698 times, not the forty-nine times this actually happened. Campaigners for comprehensive education need to reclaim the discourse of 'goodness' for all schools.

The Contingent Electoral Impacts of Programmatic Policies: Evidence From Education Reforms in Tanzania

A large literature documents the electoral benefits of clientelist and programmatic policies in low-income states. We extend this literature by showing the cyclical electoral responses to a large programmatic intervention to expand access to secondary education in Tanzania over multiple electoral periods. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that the incumbent party’s vote share increased by 2 percentage points in the election following the policy’s announcement as a campaign promise (2005), but decreased by -1.4 percentage points in the election following implementation (2010). We find no discernible electoral impact of the policy in 2015, two electoral cycles later. We attribute the electoral penalty in 2010 to how the secondary school expansion policy was implemented. Our findings shed light on the temporally-contingent electoral impacts of programmatic policies, and highlight the need for more research on how policy implementation structures public opinion and vote choice in low-income states.

The Consequences of Faulty Policy Design: The Case of High School Expansion in Mexico

This article analyzes the strategies used in subnational governments to implement an education policy aimed to increase high school coverage in marginalized communities of rural Mexico. Based on in-depth interviews with responsible for administering the telebachillerato model, findings display the implications of enacting a poorly designed policy failing to match the complex realities of the communities. We observe innovative yet insufficient ways to maneuver a policy that provides scarce funding and generates tensions between levels of government. The findings contribute to the literature about implications of poor policy design and provide evidence for education policy makers working on school coverage expansion.

Secondary Schools and Teenage Childbearing: Evidence from the School Expansion in Brazilian Municipalities

This article investigates the effect that increasing secondary education opportunities have on teenage fertility in Brazil. Using a novel dataset to exploit variation from a 57 percent increase in secondary schools across 4,884 Brazilian municipalities between 1997 and 2009, the analysis shows an important role of secondary school availability on underage fertility. An increase of one school per 100 females reduces a cohort's teenage birthrate by between 0.250 and 0.563 births per 100, or a reduction of one birth for roughly every 50 to 100 students who enroll in secondary education. The results highlight the important role of access to education leading to spillovers in addition to improving educational attainment.

The Cyclical Electoral Impacts of Programmatic Policies: Evidence from Education Reforms in Tanzania

A large literature documents the electoral benefits of clientelistic and programmatic policies in low-income states. We extend this literature by showing the cyclical electoral responses to a large programmatic intervention to expand access to secondary education in Tanzania over multiple electoral periods. Using a difference-indifference approach, we find that the incumbent party's vote share increased by 2 percentage points in the election following the policy's announcement as a campaign promise (2005), but decreased by -1.4 percentage points in the election following implementation (2010). We find no discernible electoral impact of the policy in 2015, two electoral cycles later. We attribute the electoral penalty in 2010 to how the secondary school expansion policy was implemented. Our findings shed light on the temporally-contingent electoral impacts of programmatic policies, and highlight the need for more research on how policy implementation structures public opinion and vote choice in low-income states.

LITERACY AND PRIMARY SCHOOL EXPANSION IN PORTUGAL: 1940-62

ABSTRACTIn 1940, the Portuguese government approved a massive primary school construction plan that projected a 60 per cent increase in the number of primary schools. Based on the collection of a new dataset, we describe literacy levels in Portugal prior to the plan as well as the plan's strategy regarding the location of schools. We then estimate the causal impact of the increase in the number of schools between 1940 and the early 60s on enrolment and literacy, all at the county level. We conclude the increase in the number of schools was responsible for 80 per cent of the increase in enrolment and 13 per cent of the increase in the literacy rate of the affected cohorts.