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Regional school comparison and school choice : how do they relate to student performance ? Evidence from PISA 2003

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  • Maresa, SPRIETSMA

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

School choice and accountability have become popular educational policies in the US and the UK. In Europe, such policies are less often applied and therefore less subject to research. The present paper uses recent international data to study the impact of schools comparing their pupil’s results to a regional or national performance standard and that of regional school choice on student test scores. School performance comparisons and school choice by parents are assumed to complement each other in increasing both school and teacher effort. We estimate an education production function controlling for the hierarchical nature of the data. We also estimate our model using quantiles of student test scores to identify potentially different effects at different levels of student performance. We find that both a higher regional percentage of schools comparing their results and regional intensity of school choice significantly improve student test scores. This positive effect varies in size according to whether we consider low or high-performancing students.

Suggested Citation

  • Maresa, SPRIETSMA, 2006. "Regional school comparison and school choice : how do they relate to student performance ? Evidence from PISA 2003," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006002, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006002
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    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2006-2.pdf
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    1. Luciano Canova & Alessandro Vaglio, 2011. "Why do educated mothers matter? A model of parental help," Working Papers 2011/3, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School choice; school performance standards; education production function; pupil performance; hierarchical models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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