We use remarkable population-level administrative education and birth records from Florida to study the role of Long-Term Orientation on the educational attainment of immigrant students living in the US. Controlling for the quality of schools and individual characteristics, students from countries with long term oriented attitudes perform better than students from cultures that do not emphasize the importance of delayed gratification. These students perform better in third grade reading and math tests, have larger test score gains over time, have fewer absences and disciplinary incidents, are less likely to repeat grades, and are more likely to graduate from high school in four years. Also, they are more likely to enroll in advanced high school courses, especially in scientific subjects. Parents from long term oriented cultures are more likely to secure better educational opportunities for their children. A larger fraction of immigrants speaking the same language in the school amplifies the effect of Long-Term Orientation on educational performance. We validate these results using a sample of immigrant students living in 37 different countries.

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We study the role of Long-Term Orientation on the educational attainment of immigrant students. Controlling for the quality of schools and socioeconomic characteristics, students from long-term oriented cultures perform better in third grade reading and math, have larger test score gains over time, fewer absences and disciplinary incidents, are less likely to repeat grades, more likely to enroll in advanced high school courses, and are more likely to graduate from high school in four years. Evidence on mechanisms suggests that both parents’ educational choices for their children and social learning from peers are important mechanisms. (JEL H75, I21, I26, J15, Z13)

We use remarkable population-level administrative education and birth records from Florida to study the role of Long-Term Orientation on the educational attainment of immigrant students living in the US. Controlling for the quality of schools and individual characteristics, students from countries with long term oriented attitudes perform better than students from cultures that do not emphasize the importance of delayed gratification. These students perform better in third grade reading and math tests, have larger test score gains over time, have fewer absences and disciplinary incidents, are less likely to repeat grades, and are more likely to graduate from high school in four years. Also, they are more likely to enroll in advanced high school courses, especially in scientific subjects. Parents from long term oriented cultures are more likely to secure better educational opportunities for their children. A larger fraction of immigrants speaking the same language in the school amplifies the effect of Long-Term Orientation on educational performance. We validate these results using a sample of immigrant students living in 37 different countries.

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Test-based accountability has become the new norm in public education over the last decade. In many states and school districts nationwide, student performance on standardized tests plays an important role in high-stakes decisions, such as grade retention. This study examines the effects of grade retention on student misbehavior in Florida, which requires students with reading skills below grade level to be retained in the third grade. The regression discontinuity estimates suggest that grade retention increases the likelihood of disciplinary incidents and suspensions in the short run, yet these effects dissipate over time. The findings also suggest that these short-term adverse effects are concentrated among economically disadvantaged and male students.

This study explores whether teacher performance trajectory over time differs by school-poverty settings. Focusing on elementary school mathematics teachers in North Carolina and Florida, we find no systematic relationship between school student poverty rates and teacher performance trajectories. In both high-(≥60% free/reduced-price lunch [FRPL]) and lower-poverty (<60% FRPL) schools, teacher performance improves the fastest in the first 5 years and then flattens out in years 5 to 10. Teacher performance growth resumes between year 10 and 15 in North Carolina but remains flat in Florida. In both school-poverty settings, there is a significant variation in teacher performance trajectories. Among novice and early-career teachers, the fastest-growing teachers (75th percentile) improve by 0.04 standard deviations more in student gain scores annually than slower teachers (25th percentile). In both school settings, novice teachers who started with low effectiveness also grew at a slower rate in the next 5 years than novice teachers with higher initial effectiveness. Our findings suggest that the lack of productivity "return" to experience in high-poverty schools reported in the literature is unlikely to be the result of differential teacher learning in high-and lower-poverty schools.

The use of test scores as a performance measure in high-stakes educational accountability has become increasingly popular since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which imposed sanctions such as the threat of losing federal funds unless a state implemented a school accountability system that measures student progress continuously. Since then, many in the education community have questioned whether differences in student test scores reflect actual discrepancies in the long-term well-being of individuals. In this review, we try to address this question in the light of the extant literature that examines the relationship between test scores and later life outcomes. We show that while there are certainly studies that contradict the causality of this relationship, there is also abundant evidence suggesting a causal link between test scores and later life outcomes. We conclude that any debate about the use of test scores in educational accountability (1) should be framed by use of all relevant empirical evidence, (2) should also consider the predictive validity of nontest measures of student success, and (3) should keep in mind that the predictive validity of test scores could be stronger in some contexts than others.