Showing 1 – 4 of 4 results.
Self-published
Replication data for: Charters without Lotteries: Testing Takeovers in New Orleans and Boston (ICPSR 113052)
Released/updated on: 2019-10-12
Charter takeovers are traditional public schools restarted as charter schools. We develop a grandfathering instrument for takeover attendance that compares students at schools designated for takeover with a matched sample of students attending similar schools not yet taken over. Grandfathering estimates from New Orleans show substantial gains from takeover enrollment. In Boston, grandfathered students see achievement gains at least as large as the gains for students assigned charter seats in lotteries. A non-charter Boston turnaround intervention that had much in common with the takeover strategy generated gains as large as those seen for takeovers, while other more modest turnaround interventions yielded smaller effects.
Self-published
Replication data for: Free to Choose: Can School Choice Reduce Student Achievement? (ICPSR 113712)
Released/updated on: 2019-10-12
A central argument for school choice is that parents can choose schools wisely. This principle may underlie why lottery-based school evaluations have almost always reported positive or zero achievement effects. This paper reports on a striking counterexample to these results. We use randomized lotteries to evaluate the Louisiana Scholarship Program, a voucher plan that provides public funds for disadvantaged students to attend private schools. LSP participation lowers math scores by 0.4 standard deviations and also reduces achievement in reading, science, and social studies. These effects may be due in part to selection of low-quality private schools into the program.
Self-published
Replication data for: Strategy-Proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match (ICPSR 113339)
Released/updated on: 2019-10-12
The design of the New York City (NYC) high school match involved trade-offs
among efficiency, stability, and strategy-proofness that raise new theoretical
questions. We analyze a model with indifferences -- ties -- in school preferences.
Simulations with field data and the theory favor breaking indifferences
the same way at every school -- single tiebreaking -- in a student-proposing
deferred acceptance mechanism. Any inefficiency associated with a realized
tiebreaking cannot be removed without harming student incentives. Finally,
we empirically document the extent of potential efficiency loss associated with
strategy-proofness and stability, and direct attention to some open questions.
(JEL C78, D82, I21)
Self-published
Replication data for: The Welfare Effects of Coordinated Assignment: Evidence from the New York City High School Match (ICPSR 113104)
Released/updated on: 2019-10-12
Coordinated single-offer school assignment systems are a popular education reform. We show that uncoordinated offers in NYC's school assignment mechanism generated mismatches. One-third of applicants were unassigned after the main round and later administratively placed at less desirable schools. We evaluate the effects of the new coordinated mechanism based on deferred acceptance using estimated student preferences. The new mechanism achieves 80 percent of the possible gains from a no-choice neighborhood extreme to a utilitarian benchmark. Coordinating offers dominates the effects of further algorithm modifications. Students most likely to be previously administratively assigned experienced the largest gains in welfare and subsequent achievement.