IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bav/wpaper/135_siegler.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What triggers school improvement? Evidence from a court induced change in Florida's A+ accountability plan

Author

Listed:
  • Benedikt Siegler

Abstract

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court ended the state funded voucher program which allowed students of repeatedly failing public schools to transfer to a private school. This gives us the unique opportunity to evaluate the incentive character of a private school competition threat in school accountability systems. Using administrative student-level data from Florida and a difference-in-discontinuities approach, I analyze whether this reduction in sanction threats led failing schools to lower their effort in raising educational performance. Results indicate that the termination of the voucher program did not attenuate the overall incentive effect of the sanction regime. This leads to conclude that the public school choice option, which remained unaffected by the court’s decision, is a sufficient deterrent. This finding has important policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Benedikt Siegler, 2013. "What triggers school improvement? Evidence from a court induced change in Florida's A+ accountability plan," Working Papers 135, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    • Handle: RePEc:bav:wpaper:135_siegler
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bgpe.de/texte/DP/135_Siegler.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dickert-Conlin, Stacy & Elder, Todd, 2010. "Suburban legend: School cutoff dates and the timing of births," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 826-841, October.
    2. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2013. "Vouchers, Public School Response, And The Role Of Incentives: Evidence From Florida," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 500-526, January.
    3. Chakrabarti Rajashri, 2013. "Impact of Voucher Design on Public School Performance: Evidence from Florida and Milwaukee Voucher Programs," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 349-394, July.
    4. repec:mpr:mprres:6364 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Hanley Chiang, "undated". "How Accountability Pressure on Failing Schools Affects Student Achievement," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c58a3b537e324447b94a2bd41, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. Chiang, Hanley, 2009. "How accountability pressure on failing schools affects student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1045-1057, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benedikt Siegler, 2015. "Microeconometric Evaluations of Education Policies," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 57.
    2. Jonah Rockoff & Lesley J. Turner, 2010. "Short-Run Impacts of Accountability on School Quality," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 119-147, November.
    3. Craig, Steven G. & Imberman, Scott A. & Perdue, Adam, 2015. "Do administrators respond to their accountability ratings? The response of school budgets to accountability grades," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 55-68.
    4. Craig, Steven G. & Imberman, Scott A. & Perdue, Adam, 2013. "Does it pay to get an A? School resource allocations in response to accountability ratings," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 30-42.
    5. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2013. "Accountability with Voucher Threats, Responses, and the Test-Taking Population: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Florida," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(2), pages 121-167, April.
    6. Chakrabarti, Rajashri, 2014. "Incentives and responses under No Child Left Behind: Credible threats and the role of competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 124-146.
    7. Feng, Li & Figlio, David & Sass, Tim, 2018. "School accountability and teacher mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-17.
    8. Filer, Randall K. & Münich, Daniel, 2013. "Responses of private and public schools to voucher funding," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 269-285.
    9. David Figlio & Cassandra M. D. Hart, 2014. "Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 133-156, January.
    10. Thomas Dee & Elise Dizon-Ross, 2017. "School Performance, Accountability and Waiver Reforms: Evidence from Louisiana," NBER Working Papers 23463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rajashri Chakrabarti & Noah Schwartz, 2013. "Unintended consequences of school accountability policies: evidence from Florida and implications for New York," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 19(May), pages 19-44.
    12. Hemelt, Steven W., 2011. "Performance effects of failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): Evidence from a regression discontinuity framework," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 702-723, August.
    13. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2011. "Vouchers, responses, and the test-taking population: regression discontinuity evidence from Florida," Staff Reports 486, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Ferreyra, Maria Marta & Liang, Pierre Jinghong, 2012. "Information asymmetry and equilibrium monitoring in education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 237-254.
    15. Iftikhar Hussain, 2015. "Subjective Performance Evaluation in the Public Sector: Evidence from School Inspections," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(1), pages 189-221.
    16. Chakrabarti Rajashri, 2013. "Impact of Voucher Design on Public School Performance: Evidence from Florida and Milwaukee Voucher Programs," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 349-394, January.
    17. Morten Anstorp Rosenkvist, 2010. "Using Student Test Results for Accountability and Improvement: A Literature Review," OECD Education Working Papers 54, OECD Publishing.
    18. Craig, Steven G. & Imberman, Scott A. & Perdue, Adam, 2013. "Does it pay to get an A? School resource allocations in response to accountability ratings," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 30-42.
    19. Ana Balcao Reis & Carmo Seabra & Luis C. Nunes, 2012. "Ranking schools: a step toward increased accountability or a mere discriminatory practice?," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp567, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    20. Akyol, Metin, 2016. "Do educational vouchers reduce inequality and inefficiency in education?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 149-167.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    School accountability; Sanction threats; School choice; Florida public schools; Difference-in-Discontinuities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bav:wpaper:135_siegler. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jennifer Feichtmayer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vierlde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.