The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Parents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school's racial mix. The importance of school characteristics in the housing market can be seen in the jump in house prices at school district boundaries where peer characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains open, however. This paper uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the causal effects of peer characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs for Boston and New York City's heavily over-subscribed exam schools. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the bottom of the state SAT score distribution to a school with scores near the median. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students drawn from the extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants. Our estimates suggest that the marked changes in peer characteristics at exam school admissions cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.JEL Classification: I21, I28, C21

The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Attending the Schools that Parents Prefer

“…Our analysis includes the following studies assessing the test score effects of attending any preferred public (non-charter) secondary school: Abdulkadiroglu et al (2014), Abdulkadiroglu et al (2017), Anderson et al (2016), Ajayi (2015, Cullen et al (2006), Deming (2011), Hastings et al (2009), Hoekstra et al (2018, Jackson (2010), Pop-Eleches and Urquiola (2013). In addition, we also consider the following studies assessing the test score effects of attending a preferred elite public secondary school: Barrow et al (2017), Bui et al (2014, Clark (2010), Dee and Lan (2015), Dustan et al (2017), Lucas and Mbiti (2014), Park et al (2015).…”

Admisión y selección académica en educación media superior

“…Con ello se ha estudiado si el uso de exámenes de entrada tiene efectos en el ingreso de estudiantes dado el estrato económico de procedencia (Jiang et al, 2019;Simon & Marcelo, 2016;Torrance, 2017); así como en el perfil académico de quienes logran ingresar (Dias & Sá, 2012;Prakhov, 2014). Sin embargo, las investigaciones ofrecen resultados mixtos acerca de los efectos del uso de exámenes de entrada en el perfil académico de quienes son seleccionados; por un lado, algunos estudios ofrecen evidencia de un efecto positivo del uso de exámenes de entrada en los puntajes en pruebas posteriores de los estudiantes (Kirabo Jackson, 2010;Pop-Eleches & Urquiola, 2013), mientras que otros muestran que el uso de exámenes de entrada tiene poco o nulo efecto en resultados académicos posteriores de los estudiantes (Abdulkadiroglu et al, 2011;Dobbie & Fryer, 2014). Una posible razón de la evidencia mixta es que los exámenes de entrada no son una experiencia educativa homogénea pues los contextos educativos donde se implementan son diversos (Anderson et al, 2016).…”

“…Gran parte de la investigación se ha concentrado en observar los efectos diferenciados que tiene el uso de exámenes de ingreso en el acceso a educación superior a nivel internacional (Davey et al, 2007;Freeman, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars et al, 2016;Pitman, 2016); así como en el rendimiento académico en educación superior (Jiang et al, 2019;Prakhov, 2014). Sin embargo, se observa menos evidencia acerca de los efectos que tienen los procesos de admisión y los mecanismos de selección en el nivel de EMS con excepción de las experiencias de China (Anderson et al, 2016), Estados Unidos (Abdulkadiroglu et al, 2011;Dobbie & Fryer, 2014), y el Reino Unido (Clark & Bono, 2016) en donde se han obtenido resultados contradictorios acerca de los efectos de los exámenes de ingreso en el rendimiento académico posterior de los seleccionados (Anderson et al, 2016).…”

Accelerating Saudi Students into Higher Education Programs: Identifying Potential Educational Interventions to Expedite Development

“…Furthermore, recommendation letters from a parent or teacher are also required. However, student maturity could be an important factor in the identification process, as the students have to show their sense of responsibility in going through an intensive acceleration process to the university, which can be evaluated through interviews with the students and their parents or peers (see Abdulkadiroğlu et al, 2014;Abdulkadiroğlu et al, 2005;Bin Yousef, 2018;Corcoran & Baker-Smith, 2015). Lastly, admission committees often consider indicators of learning motivation and commitment, in order to ensure students' success in rigorous programmes (Corcoran & Baker-Smith, 2015;Rapp 2008).…”