School markets
Subtitle: the impact of information approximating schools' effectiveness
By: Alejandra Mizala, Miguel Urquiola.
Contributors: Urquiola S., Miguel; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13676; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13676.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "The impact of competition on academic outcomes is likely to depend on whether parents are informed about schools' effectiveness or valued added (which may or may not be correlated with absolute measures of their quality), and on whether this information influences their school choices, thereby affecting schools' market outcomes.  To explore these issues, this paper considers Chile's SNED program, which seeks to identify effective schools, selecting them from within "homogeneous groups" of arguably comparable institutions.  Its results are widely disseminated, and the information it generates is quite different from that conveyed by a simple test-based ranking of schools (which in Chile, turns out to largely resemble a ranking based on socioeconomic status).  We rely on a sharp regression discontinuity to estimate the effect that being identified as a SNED winner has on schools' enrollment, tuition levels, and socioeconomic composition.  Through five applications of the program, we find no consistent evidence that winning a SNED award affects these outcomes.  This suggests that information on school effectiveness -- at least as it is calculated and delivered by the SNED -- might not much affect school markets"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/5/2008.

Includes bibliographical references.

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