IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/edecon/v21y2013i5p431-446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring foundation school effectiveness using English administrative data, survey data and a regression discontinuity design

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Allen

Abstract

Apparently sophisticated school performance measures have been used to claim that giving schools autonomy from local government control improves pupil exam performance. This paper explores the extent to which inferring causality between autonomy and pupil achievement is reasonable given that pupils are not randomly assigned to schools and schools do not randomly acquire autonomous status. Rich administrative data and the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England are used to evaluate whether school performance measures are confounded by pupil characteristics that explain both the chances of attending an autonomous school and academic achievement. The assignment of grant-maintained (and thus now foundation) status through a vote of parents is used to compare school that just did, and just did not, gain autonomy over a decade ago. These alternative estimation strategies suggest there is little evidence that foundation status casually yields superior school performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Allen, 2013. "Measuring foundation school effectiveness using English administrative data, survey data and a regression discontinuity design," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 431-446, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:edecon:v:21:y:2013:i:5:p:431-446
    DOI: 10.1080/09645292.2012.687197
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09645292.2012.687197
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09645292.2012.687197?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    2. Lee, Myoung-jae, 2005. "Micro-Econometrics for Policy, Program and Treatment Effects," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199267699.
    3. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2010. "The Value of School Facility Investments: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 215-261.
    4. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2004. "Economic Impacts of Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001," NBER Working Papers 10598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Martin Schlotter & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: a non-technical guide," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 109-137.
    6. George Leckie & Harvey Goldstein, 2009. "The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(4), pages 835-851, October.
    7. Damon Clark, 2009. "The Performance and Competitive Effects of School Autonomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 745-783, August.
    8. Lee, David S., 2008. "Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 675-697, February.
    9. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2004. "Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1383-1441.
    10. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    11. Rebecca Allen, 2007. "Allocating Pupils to Their Nearest Secondary School: The Consequences for Social and Ability Stratification," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 751-770, April.
    12. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin Pugh & Gigi Foster, 2014. "Australia's National School Data and the ‘Big Data’ Revolution in Education Economics," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 47(2), pages 258-268, June.
    2. Burgess, Simon, 2016. "Human Capital and Education: The State of the Art in the Economics of Education," IZA Discussion Papers 9885, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    2. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    3. Daniel Bradley & Incheol Kim & Xuan Tian, 2017. "Do Unions Affect Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2251-2271, July.
    4. Jerch, Rhiannon & Kahn, Matthew E. & Li, Shanjun, 2017. "The efficiency of local government: The role of privatization and public sector unions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 95-121.
    5. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Zhang, Eliza Xia & Zhong, Kai, 2021. "Does unionization affect the manager–shareholder conflict? Evidence from firm-specific stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    7. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2012. "Evaluating the labor-market effects of compulsory military service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 814-829.
    8. repec:pri:cepsud:180rothstein is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Lecce, Steven & Lepone, Andrew & McKenzie, Michael D. & Segara, Reuben, 2012. "The impact of naked short selling on the securities lending and equity market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 81-107.
    10. Marco Manacorda, 2012. "The Cost of Grade Retention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 596-606, May.
    11. Ning, Manxiu & Gong, Jinquan & Zheng, Xuhui & Zhuang, Jun, 2016. "Does New Rural Pension Scheme decrease elderly labor supply? Evidence from CHARLS," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 315-330.
    12. Rhiannon Jerch & Matthew E. Kahn & Shanjun Li, 2016. "Efficient Local Government Service Provision: The Role of Privatization and Public Sector Unions," NBER Working Papers 22088, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2008. "The Value of School Facilities: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," NBER Working Papers 14516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Rebecca Allen, 2010. "Does school autonomy improve educational outcomes? Judging the performance of foundation secondary schools in England," DoQSS Working Papers 10-02, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    15. Perez-Reyna, David & Villamizar-Villegas, Mauricio, 2019. "Exchange rate effects of financial regulations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 228-245.
    16. Solé-Ollé, Albert & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2013. "Do political parties matter for local land use policies?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-56.
    17. Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2022. "Regression Discontinuity Designs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 821-851, August.
    18. Deng, Taotao & Hu, Yukun & Ma, Mulan, 2019. "Regional policy and tourism: A quasi-natural experiment," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-16.
    19. Magnus Schauf & Eline Schoonjans, 2022. "Better Safe than Sorry: Toxic Waste Management after Unionization," Working Papers 220, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    20. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2008. "The Value of School Facilities: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," Working Papers 1104, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    21. Wenchi Wei, 2021. "State fiscal constraint and local overrides: a regression discontinuity design estimation of the fiscal effects," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 347-373, December.

    More about this item

    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:taf:edecon:v:21:y:2013:i:5:p:431-446. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEDE20 .

    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.