Title: Do accountability and voucher threats improve low-performing schools?
Description: "In this paper we study the effects of the threat of school vouchers and school stigma in Florida on the performance of "low-performing" schools using student-level data from a subset of districts.  Estimates of the change in school-level high-stakes test scores from the first year of the reform are consistent with the early results used by the state of Florida to claim large-scale improvements associated with the threat of voucher assignment.  However, we also find that much of this estimated effect may be due to other factors.  While we estimate a small relative improvement in reading scores on the high-stakes test for voucher-threatened/stigmatized schools, we estimate a much smaller relative improvement on a lower-stakes, nationally norm-referenced, test.  Further, the relative gains in reading scores are explained largely by changing student characteristics.  We find more evidence for a positive differential effect on math test scores on both the low- and highstakes tests, however, the results from the lower-stakes test appear primarily limited to students in the high-stakes grade.  Finally, we find some evidence that the relative improvements following the introduction of the A Plan by low-performing schools were more due to the stigma of receiving the low grade rather than the threat of vouchers"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Subjects: Educational accountability, Educational vouchers, School improvement programs
Places: Florida