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Carrot and stick?: Impact of a low-stakes school accountability program on student achievement

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  • Woo, Seokjin
  • Lee, Soohyung
  • Kim, Kyunghee

Abstract

A key concern in the design of education policies relates to the structure of incentives in accountability systems. This paper examines a school accountability program that provides financial support to low-performing schools but has no direct punishment scheme for recipients who do not exhibit improvement. Although the program does not include high-stakes consequences, our estimates indicate that the program reduced the share of underperforming students by 18%. This paper’s results suggest that to improve student achievement, a school accountability program does not need to set high-stakes consequences that potentially induce unwanted strategic behaviors on the part of school workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Woo, Seokjin & Lee, Soohyung & Kim, Kyunghee, 2015. "Carrot and stick?: Impact of a low-stakes school accountability program on student achievement," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 195-199.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:137:y:2015:i:c:p:195-199
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2015.10.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Cook, Will, 2021. "Does funding targeted at improving the management of schools increase school performance over the long term?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Machado, Anaely & Terra, Rafael & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2024. "Higher education responses to accountability," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School accountability; Student achievement; School performance; Fuzzy regression discontinuity design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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