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Every Child Matters? An Evaluation of "Special Educational Needs" Programmes in England

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  • Keslair, Francois

    (Paris School of Economics)

  • Maurin, Eric

    (Paris School of Economics)

  • McNally, Sandra

    (University of Surrey)

Abstract

The need for education to help every child rather than focus on average attainment has become a more central part of the policy agenda in the US and the UK. Remedial programmes are often difficult to evaluate because participation is usually based on pupil characteristics that are largely unobservable to the analyst. In this paper we evaluate programmes for children with moderate levels of 'special educational needs' in England. We show that the decentralized design of the policy generates significant variations in access to remediation resources across children with similar prior levels of difficulty. However, this differential is not reflected in subsequent educational attainment – suggesting that the programme is ineffective for 'treated' children. In the second part of our analysis, we use demographic variation within schools to consider the effect of the programme on whole year groups. Our analysis is consistent with no overall effect on account of the combined direct and indirect (spillover) effects. Thus, the analysis suggests that a key way that English education purports to help children with learning difficulties is not working.

Suggested Citation

  • Keslair, Francois & Maurin, Eric & McNally, Sandra, 2011. "Every Child Matters? An Evaluation of "Special Educational Needs" Programmes in England," IZA Discussion Papers 6069, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6069
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Marco Manacorda, 2012. "The Cost of Grade Retention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 596-606, May.
    2. Claire Crawford & Anna Vignoles, 2010. "An analysis of the educational progress of children with special educational needs," DoQSS Working Papers 10-19, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    3. Claire Crawford & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir, 2007. "When You Are Born Matters: The Imapct of Date of Birth on Child Cognitive Outcomes in England," CEE Discussion Papers 0093, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    4. Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2005. "Targeted Remedial Education for Underperforming Teenagers: Costs and Benefits," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 839-874, October.
    5. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2002. "Inferring Program Effects for Special Populations: Does Special Education Raise Achievement for Students with Disabilities?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(4), pages 584-599, November.
    6. repec:mpr:mprres:6738 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. McGee, Andrew, 2011. "Skills, standards, and disabilities: How youth with learning disabilities fare in high school and beyond," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 109-129, February.
    8. Dhuey, Elizabeth & Lipscomb, Stephen, 2010. "Disabled or young? Relative age and special education diagnoses in schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 857-872, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. Fanny Alivon, 2021. "Lieu de résidence et parcours scolaire des collégiens d’Île-de-France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 72(5), pages 749-784.
    2. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    3. Sallin, Aurelién, 2021. "Estimating returns to special education: combining machine learning and text analysis to address confounding," Economics Working Paper Series 2109, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    4. Kivinen, Aapo, 2018. "The Effect of Relative School Starting Age on Having an Individualized Curriculum in Finland," Working Papers 104, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Eva Deuchert & Lukas Kauer & Helge Liebert & Carl Wuppermann, 2017. "Disability discrimination in higher education: analyzing the quality of counseling services," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 543-553, November.
    6. Arendt, Jacob Nielsen & Greve, Jane & Bergqvist, Mikkel, 2019. "Is it good to be LATE? The impact of a preparatory program on upper secondary schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 38-52.
    7. Contreras, Dante & Brante, Miguel & Espinoza, Sebastian & Zuñiga, Isabel, 2020. "The effect of the integration of students with special educational needs: Evidence from Chile," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Aur'elien Sallin, 2021. "Estimating returns to special education: combining machine learning and text analysis to address confounding," Papers 2110.08807, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2022.
    9. Deuchert, Eva & Kauer, Lukas & Liebert, Helge & Wuppermann, Carl, 2013. "No disabled student left behind? - Evidence from a social field experiment," Economics Working Paper Series 1336, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    evaluation; special needs; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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