Tinkering toward accolades
Subtitle: school gaming under a performance accountability system
By: Julie Berry Cullen, Randall Reback
Contributors: Reback, Randall; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 12286; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 12286.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Description: "We explore the extent to which schools manipulate the composition of students in the test-taking pool in order to maximize ratings under Texas' accountability system in the 1990s.  We first derive predictions from a static model of administrators' incentives given the structure of the ratings criteria, and then test these predictions by comparing differential changes in exemption rates across student subgroups within campuses and across campuses and regimes.  Our analyses uncover evidence of a moderate degree of strategic behavior, so that there is some tension between designing systems that account for heterogeneity in student populations and that are manipulation-free"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/14/2006.

Includes bibliographical references.

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