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The distributional impacts of a universal school reform on mathematical achievements: A natural experiment from Canada

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  • Haeck, Catherine
  • Lefebvre, Pierre
  • Merrigan, Philip

Abstract

We investigate the impact of an ambitious provincial school reform in Canada on students’ mathematical achievements. It is the first paper to exploit a universal school reform of this magnitude to identify the causal effect of a widely supported teaching approach on students’ math scores. Our data set allows us to differentiate impacts according to the number of years of treatment and the timing of treatment. Using the changes-in-changes model, we find that the reform had negative effects on students’ scores at all points on the skills distribution and that the effects were larger the longer the exposure to the reform.

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  • Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre & Merrigan, Philip, 2014. "The distributional impacts of a universal school reform on mathematical achievements: A natural experiment from Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 137-160.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:41:y:2014:i:c:p:137-160
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.03.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2020. "Les inégalités provinciales aux tests internationaux-nationaux de littéracie : Québec, Ontario et autres provinces canadiennes 1993-2018 [Provincial achievement gaps from literacy surveys condu," Working Papers 20-02, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management, revised Oct 2020.
    2. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2022. "Why Subsidize Independent Schools? Estimating the Effect of a Unique Canadian Schooling Model on Educational Attainment," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, February.
    3. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2020. "Les inégalités provinciales aux tests internationaux-nationaux de littéracie : Québec, Ontario et autres provinces canadiennes 1993-2018 (Version révisée et augmentée octobre 2020)," CIRANO Working Papers 2020s-29, CIRANO.
    4. Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre, 2020. "The Evolution of Cognitive Skills Inequalities by Socioeconomic Status across Canada," Working Papers 20-04, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    5. Simon Briole, 2019. "From Teacher Quality to Teaching Quality: Instructional Productivity and Teaching Practices in the US," PSE Working Papers halshs-01993616, HAL.
    6. Falch, Torberg & Nyhus, Ole Henning & Strøm, Bjarne, 2014. "Causal effects of mathematics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 174-187.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Natural experiment; Teaching reform; Math scores; Distributional effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A21 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Pre-college
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

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