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The Performance and Competitive Effects of School Autonomy

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  • Damon Clark
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    Abstract

    This paper studies a recent British reform that allowed public high schools to opt out of local authority control and become autonomous schools funded directly by the central government. Schools seeking autonomy had only to propose and win a majority vote among current parents. Almost one in three high schools voted on autonomy between 1988 and 1997, and using a version of the regression discontinuity design, I find large achievement gains at schools in which the vote barely won compared to schools in which it barely lost. Despite other reforms that ensured that the British education system was, by international standards, highly competitive, a comparison of schools in the geographic neighborhoods of narrow vote winners and narrow vote losers suggests that these gains did not spill over. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..

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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by University of Chicago Press in its journal Journal of Political Economy.

    Volume (Year): 117 (2009)
    Issue (Month): 4 (08)
    Pages: 745-783
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    Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:117:y:2009:i:4:p:745-783

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    Cited by:
    1. Eric A. Hanushek & Susanne Link & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Does School Autonomy Make Sense Everywhere? Panel Estimates from PISA," CESifo Working Paper Series 3648, CESifo Group Munich.
    2. Monica Escaleras & Charles Register, 2012. "Fiscal decentralization and natural hazard risks," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 165-183, April.
    3. David Card & Martin D. Dooley & A. Abigail Payne, 2010. "School Competition and Efficiency with Publicly Funded Catholic Schools," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 150-76, October.
    4. Torberg Falch & Justina AV Fischer, 2008. "Public sector decentralization and school performance. International evidence," TWI Research Paper Series 39, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    5. Rebecca Allen, 2010. "Does school autonomy improve educational outcomes? Judging the performance of foundation secondary schools in England," DoQSS Working Papers 10-02, Department of Quantitative Social Science - Institute of Education, University of London.

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