Title: Does educational tracking affect performance and inequality?
Subtitle: differences-in-differences evidence across countries
First published: 2005
Description: "Even though some countries track students into differing-ability schools by age 10, others keep their entire secondary-school system comprehensive.  To estimate the effects of such institutional differences in the face of country heterogeneity, we employ an international differences-in-differences approach.  We identify tracking effects by comparing differences in outcome between primary and secondary school across tracked and non-tracked systems.  Six international student assessments provide eight pairs of achievement contrasts for between 18 and 26 cross-country comparisons.  The results suggest that early tracking increases educational inequality.  While less clear, there is also a tendency for early tracking to reduce mean performance.  Therefore, there does not appear to be any equity-efficiency trade-off"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Subjects: Academic achievement, Track system (Education), Educational equalization, Comparative education
LC classification: HB1