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Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis

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Author Info
Brian A. Jacob (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)
Lars Lefgren (Brigham Young University)

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Abstract

As standards and accountability have become increasingly prominent features of the educational landscape, educators have relied more on remedial programs such as summer school and grade retention to help low-achieving students meet minimum academic standards. Yet the evidence on the effectiveness of such programs is mixed, and prior research suffers from selection bias. However, recent school reform efforts in Chicago provide an opportunity to examine the causal impact of these remedial education programs. In 1996, the Chicago Public Schools instituted an accountability policy that tied summer school and promotional decisions to performance on standardized tests, which resulted in a highly nonlinear relationship between current achievement and the probability of attending summer school or being retained. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the net effect of these programs was to substantially increase academic achievement among third-graders, but not sixth-graders. In addition, contrary to conventional wisdom and prior research, we find that retention increases achievement for third-grade students and has little effect on math achievement for sixth-grade students. Copyright (c) 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/003465304323023778
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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Review of Economics and Statistics.

Volume (Year): 86 (2004)
Issue (Month): 1 (November)
Pages: 226-244
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:86:y:2004:i:1:p:226-244

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Hanushek, Eric A., 2006. "School Resources," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy, 1999. "Using Maimonides' Rule To Estimate The Effect Of Class Size On Scholastic Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 533-575, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Eide, Eric R. & Showalter, Mark H., 2001. "The effect of grade retention on educational and labor market outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 563-576, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Sandra E. Black, 1999. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation Of Elementary Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 577-599, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Jonathan Guryan, 2001. "Does Money Matter? Regression-Discontinuity Estimates from Education Finance Reform in Massachusetts," NBER Working Papers 8269, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Murnane, Richard J & Willett, John B & Levy, Frank, 1995. "The Growing Importance of Cognitive Skills in Wage Determination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(2), pages 251-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "The Effects Of Class Size On Student Achievement: New Evidence From Population Variation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(4), pages 1239-1285, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Topel, Robert, 1999. "Labor markets and economic growth," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 44, pages 2943-2984 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Alan B. Krueger, 1999. "Experimental Estimates Of Education Production Functions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 497-532, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Jinyong Hahn & Petra Todd & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 1999. "Evaluating the Effect of an Antidiscrimination Law Using a Regression-Discontinuity Design," NBER Working Papers 7131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Johan N.M. Lagerlöf & Andrew J. Seltzer, 2007. "The Effects of Remedial Mathematics on the Learning of Economics: A Natural Experiment," Royal Holloway, University of London: Discussion Papers in Economics 07/03, Department of Economics, Royal Holloway University of London, revised Aug 2007. [Downloadable!]
  2. Brian Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2007. "The Effect of Grade Retention on High School Completion," NBER Working Papers 13514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Kenneth Y. Chay & Patrick J. McEwan & Miguel Urquiola, 2005. "The Central Role of Noise in Evaluating Interventions That Use Test Scores to Rank Schools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1237-1258, September. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. King, Elizabeth M & Orazem, Peter & Paterno, Elizabeth M, 2008. "Promotion with and without Learning: Effects on Student Enrollment and Dropout Behavior," Staff General Research Papers 12968, Iowa State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Brian Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2007. "The Impact of Research Grant Funding on Scientific Productivity," NBER Working Papers 13519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Guido Imbens & Thomas Lemieux, 2007. "Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice," NBER Technical Working Papers 0337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Ravallion, Martin, 2005. "Evaluating anti-poverty programs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3625, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Steven Levitt, 2002. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series 1078, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Juan Carlos Calcagno & Bridget Terry Long, 2008. "The Impact of Postsecondary Remediation Using a Regression Discontinuity Approach: Addressing Endogenous Sorting and Noncompliance," NBER Working Papers 14194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Marco Manacorda, 2008. "The Cost of Grade Retention," CEP Discussion Papers dp0878, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  11. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren & David Sims, 2008. "The Persistence of Teacher-Induced Learning Gains," NBER Working Papers 14065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2005. "School Progression and the Grade Distribution of Students: Evidence from the Current Population Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 1747, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  13. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," NBER Working Papers 14723, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Lisa Barrow & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2005. "Causality, causality, causality: the view of education inputs and outputs from economics," Working Paper Series WP-05-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  15. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2004. "Impact of Voucher Design on Public School Performance: Evidence from Florida and Milwaukee Voucher Programs," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 221, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Justin McCrary, 2007. "Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test," NBER Technical Working Papers 0334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Brian A. Jacob, 2002. "Accountability, Incentives and Behavior: The Impact of High-Stakes Testing in the Chicago Public Schools," NBER Working Papers 8968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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