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Tinkering toward accolades: School gaming under a performance accountability system

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  • Randall Reback

    (Barnard College, Columbia University)

  • Julie Berry Cullen

    (UC-San Diego and NBER)

Abstract

We explore the extent to which schools manipulate the composition of students in the test-taking pool in order to maximize ratings under Texas' accountability system in the 1990s. We first derive predictions from a static model of administrators' incentives given the structure of the ratings criteria, and then test these predictions by comparing differential changes in exemption rates across student subgroups within campuses and across campuses and regimes. Our analyses uncover evidence of a moderate degree of strategic behavior, so that there is some tension between designing systems that account for heterogeneity in student populations and that are manipulation-free.

Suggested Citation

  • Randall Reback & Julie Berry Cullen, 2006. "Tinkering toward accolades: School gaming under a performance accountability system," Working Papers 0601, Barnard College, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:brn:wpaper:0601
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    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H39 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Other
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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