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The effects of school board consolidation and financing on student performance

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  • Leach, John
  • Payne, A. Abigail
  • Chan, Steve

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, states and provinces have become increasingly involved in the financing and administration of elementary and secondary education. Local school boards, however, still retain control over key aspects of the provision of education. Historically, these boards were organized at the community level so as to meet the wants of the local community. Today, states and provinces have become more interested in consolidating school boards and moving to a more centralized funding scheme. Do these changes result in improved student achievement? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the school board consolidation and funding changes instituted by the province of Ontario. We differentiate the effects of the policy changes based on observed differences in the school boards prior to consolidation. We show that students in previously high wealth school boards perform worse after the policy change compared to students in previously low wealth school boards.

Suggested Citation

  • Leach, John & Payne, A. Abigail & Chan, Steve, 2010. "The effects of school board consolidation and financing on student performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1034-1046, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:29:y:2010:i:6:p:1034-1046
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    Cited by:

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    2. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    3. De Witte, Kristof & Schiltz, Fritz, 2018. "Measuring and explaining organizational effectiveness of school districts: Evidence from a robust and conditional Benefit-of-the-Doubt approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 1172-1181.
    4. Thilo Klein & Robert Aue & Josue Ortega, 2020. "School choice with independent versus consolidated districts," Papers 2006.13209, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    5. Aue, Robert & Klein, Thilo & Ortega, Josué, 2020. "What happens when separate and unequal school districts merge?," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Alcaíno, Manuel & Jaimovich, Analia & Méndez, Carolina & Vásquez, Diana, 2022. "Government fragmentation and educational outcomes: evidence on the creation of municipalities in Chile," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11987, Inter-American Development Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School district consolidation Student performance;

    JEL classification:

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

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