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Short Run Impacts of Accountability on School Quality

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Author Info
Jonah E. Rockoff
Lesley J. Turner
Abstract

In November of 2007, the New York City Department of Education assigned elementary and middle schools a letter grade (A to F) under a new accountability system. Grades were based on numeric scores derived from student achievement and other school environmental factors such as attendance, and were linked to a system of rewards and consequences. We use the discontinuities in the assignment of grades to estimate the impact of accountability in the short run. Specifically, we examine student achievement in English Language Arts and mathematics (measured in January and March of 2008, respectively) using school level aggregate data. Although schools had only a few months to respond to the release of accountability grades, we find that receipt of a low grade significantly increased student achievement in both subjects, with larger effects in math. We find no evidence that these grades were related to the percentage of students tested, implying that accountability can cause real changes in school quality that increase student achievement over a short time horizon. We also find that parental evaluations of educational quality improved for schools receiving low accountability grades. However, changes in survey response rates hold open the possibility of selection bias in these complementary results.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14564.

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Date of creation: Dec 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14564

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Health, Education, and Welfare
I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
L38 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Policy

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  1. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2007. "Vouchers, public school response, and the role of incentives: evidence from Florida," Staff Reports 306, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. 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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  3. Randall Reback & Julie Berry Cullen, 2006. "Tinkering toward accolades: School gaming under a performance accountability system," Working Papers 0601, Barnard College, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  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. 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:
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