IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cor/louvco/2012053.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

School staff autonomy and educational performance: within school type evidence

Author

Listed:
  • VERSCHELDE, Marijn

    (SHERPPA, Ghent University, Belgium)

  • HINDRIKS, Jean

    (Université catholique de Louvain, CORE, Belgium)

  • RAYP, Glenn

    (SHERPPA, Ghent University, Belgium)

  • SCHOORS, Koen

    (CERISE, Ghent University, Belgium)

Abstract

This paper shows the effect of school staff autonomy on educational performance. The distinctive feature with existing literature is that we employ variation in autonomy within the same country and within the same school type to reduce the omitted variables problems. To fully capture the informational advantage of local actors, we define autonomy as the operational empowerment of the school's direction and teachers. The Flemish secondary school system in Belgium is analyzed as it displays unique within school type variation in school staff autonomy. This variation originates from autonomously operating school governing bodies that can group multiple schools and are free to delegate responsibilities to the school staff. Combining detailed school level and pupil level data from the PISA 2006 study with a semiparametric hierarchical model, we find strong positive effect of school staff autonomy on educational performance. The result is shown to be robust to problems of reverse causality and simultaneity. Quantile regression shows that both low and high-performers benefit from school staff autonomy.

Suggested Citation

  • VERSCHELDE, Marijn & HINDRIKS, Jean & RAYP, Glenn & SCHOORS, Koen, 2012. "School staff autonomy and educational performance: within school type evidence," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012053, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2012053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2012.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Martin D. Dooley & A. Abigail Payne, 2010. "School Competition and Efficiency with Publicly Funded Catholic Schools," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 150-176, October.
    2. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    4. Hoxby, Caroline M., 1999. "The productivity of schools and other local public goods producers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-30, October.
    5. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    6. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1209-1238, December.
    7. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2003. "The Economics of School Choice," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hox03-1, March.
    8. Hanushek, Eric A. & Link, Susanne & Woessmann, Ludger, 2013. "Does school autonomy make sense everywhere? Panel estimates from PISA," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 212-232.
    9. Fan, C. Simon & Lin, Chen & Treisman, Daniel, 2009. "Political decentralization and corruption: Evidence from around the world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 14-34, February.
    10. Kane, Thomas J. & Rockoff, Jonah E. & Staiger, Douglas O., 2008. "What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 615-631, December.
    11. Ludger Wöbmann & Elke Lüdemann & Gabriela Schütz & Martin R. West, 2007. "School Accountability, Autonomy, Choice, and the Level of Student Achievement: International Evidence from PISA 2003," OECD Education Working Papers 13, OECD Publishing.
    12. 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.
    13. N/A, 1991. "Appraisal," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 138(1), pages 3-5, November.
    14. J. Hindriks & M. Verschelde & G. Rayp & K. Schoors, 2010. "School tracking, social segregation and educational opportunity: evidence from Belgium," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/690, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    15. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    16. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2003. "Introduction to "The Economics of School Choice"," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 1-22, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Hindriks, Jean & Myles, Gareth D., 2013. "Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262018691, December.
    18. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    19. Andrei Shleifer, 1985. "A Theory of Yardstick Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 319-327, Autumn.
    20. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    21. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    22. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Joshua D. Angrist & Susan M. Dynarski & Thomas J. Kane & Parag A. Pathak, 2011. "Accountability and Flexibility in Public Schools: Evidence from Boston's Charters And Pilots," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 699-748.
    23. Frey, Bruno S, 1993. "Does Monitoring Increase Work Effort? The Rivalry with Trust and Loyalty," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 663-670, October.
    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. Mattéo Godin & Jean Hindriks, 2018. "An international comparison of school systems based on social mobility," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 499, pages 61-78.
    2. Eyles, Andrew & Hupkau, Claudia & Machin, Stephen, 2016. "School reforms and pupil performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 9-19.
    3. Lisa Grazzini, 2016. "The Importance of the Quality of Education: Some Determinants and its Effects on Earning Returns and Economic Growth," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 43-82.
    4. Tommaso Agasisti & Ekaterina Shibanova, 2020. "Autonomy, Performance And Efficiency: An Empirical Analysis Of Russian Universities 2014-2018," HSE Working papers WP BRP 224/EC/2020, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Youngran Kim, 2017. "Does autonomy over teacher hiring affect student math and science achievement?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 562-574, November.

    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. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martínez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2021. "School Choice Design, Risk Aversion and Cardinal Segregation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(635), pages 1081-1104.
    2. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Nikhil Jha, 2016. "Educational Achievement and the Allocation of School Resources," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(3), pages 251-271, September.
    3. Millimet, Daniel L. & Rangaprasad, Vasudha, 2007. "Strategic competition amongst public schools," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 199-219, March.
    4. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2015. "Does Management Matter in schools?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 647-674, May.
    5. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    6. Montalbo, Adrien, 2021. "Schools without a law: Primary education in France from the Revolution to the Guizot Law," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Geys, Benny & Konrad, Kai A., . "Federalism and optimal allocation across levels of governance," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    8. Will Dobbie & Roland G. Fryer Jr., 2013. "Getting beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 28-60, October.
    9. Ludger Wößmann, 2006. "Bildungspolitische Lehren aus den internationalen Schülertests: Wettbewerb, Autonomie und externe Leistungsüberprüfung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(3), pages 417-444, August.
    10. West, Martin R. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2006. "Which school systems sort weaker students into smaller classes? International evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 944-968, December.
    11. Eren, Ozkan & Henderson, Daniel J., 2011. "Are we wasting our children's time by giving them more homework?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 950-961, October.
    12. Naven, Matthew, 2019. "Human-Capital Formation During Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from School Quality and Postsecondary Success in California," MPRA Paper 97716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2017. "Management and Student Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 23437, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Natalie Irmert & Jan Bietenbeck & Linn Mattisson & Felix Weinhardt, 2023. "Autonomous Schools, Achievement, and Segregation," CESifo Working Paper Series 10831, CESifo.
    15. Peterson, Paul E. & Llaudet, Elena, 2006. "On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate," Working Paper Series rwp06-036, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Oliveira, Pedro Rodrigues de & Belluzzo, Walter & Pazello, Elaine Toldo, 2013. "The public–private test score gap in Brazil," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 120-133.
    17. López-Torres, Laura & Nicolini, Rosella & Prior, Diego, 2017. "Does strategic interaction affect demand for school places? A conditional efficiency approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 89-103.
    18. Stephen Gibbons & Stephen Machin & Olmo Silva, 2008. "Choice, Competition, and Pupil Achievement," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(4), pages 912-947, June.
    19. Jeong, Dong Wook & Lee, Ho Jun & Cho, Sung Kyung, 2017. "Education decentralization, school resources, and student outcomes in Korea," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 12-27.
    20. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martínez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2015. "School Choice Mechanisms, Peer Effects and Sorting," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/01, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    educational performance; PISA; school autonomy; educational production function; semiparametric;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education

    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:cor:louvco:2012053. 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: Alain GILLIS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/coreebe.html .

    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.