Julian R. Betts

Safe Port in a Storm: The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Community College Enrollments

The paper examines the impact of the business cycle on enrollments and finances at individual community colleges between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s. We find that 1 percent increases in the unemployment rates of recent high school graduates and of all adults are associated with rises in full-time attendance of about 0.5 percent and 4 percent respectively. Part-time enrollment exhibits similar anticyclical patterns. This link carries over in large part to degrees obtained. In contrast, state and local appropriations per student are procyclical. We interpret this funding pattern as a failure to integrate education policy sufficiently closely with labor market policy.

The effects of ability grouping on student achievement and resource allocation in secondary schools

Using different comparison groups than in earlier work, we find that ability tracking in math classes has little effect on growth in student math achievement. Previous articles use dummy variables to compare students from classes of high, middle and low ability to the average heterogeneously grouped student. This paper furthers the research by controlling for ability groups at each type of school and establishes that tracking schools differ little from non-tracking schools in terms of student achievement growth. The paper also shows that the allocation of students and resources among classes is remarkably similar between the two types of schools.

Does Student Sorting Invalidate Value-Added Models of Teacher Effectiveness? An Extended Analysis of the Rothstein Critique

Value-added modeling continues to gain traction as a tool for measuring teacher performance. However, recent research questions the validity of the value-added approach by showing that it does not mitigate student-teacher sorting bias (its presumed primary benefit). Our study explores this critique in more detail. Although we find that estimated teacher effects from some value-added models are severely biased, we also show that a sufficiently complex value-added model that evaluates teachers over multiple years reduces the sorting bias problem to statistical insignificance. One implication of our findings is that data from the first year or two of classroom teaching for novice teachers may be insufficient to make reliable judgments about quality. Overall, our results suggest that in some cases value-added modeling will continue to provide useful information about the effectiveness of educational inputs.

Does immigration induce ‘native flight’ from public schools into private schools?

The paper tests whether native-born American families respond to inflows of immigrants by sending their children to private school. The analysis uses 1980 and 1990 Census data from 132 metropolitan areas. For primary school students, no significant relation between immigration and private school enrollment is found. For secondary schools, a significant link emerges. For every four immigrants who arrive in public high schools, it is estimated that one native student switches to a private school. White students account for most of this flight. Natives appear to respond mainly to immigrant children who speak a language other than English at home.

The impact of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry-level earnings

Despite recent theoretical work and proposals from educational reformers, there is little empirical work on the effects of higher grading standards. In this paper we use data from the High School and Beyond survey to estimate the effects of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry level earnings. We consider not only how grading standards affect average outcomes but also how they affect the distribution of educational gains by skill level and race/ethnicity. We find that higher standards raise test scores throughout the distribution of achievement, but that the increase is greatest toward the top of the test score distribution. Higher standards have no positive effect on educational attainment, however, and indeed have negative effects on high school graduation among blacks and Hispanics. We suggest a relative performance hypothesis to explain how higher standards may reduce educational attainment even as they increase educational achievement.

The Skill Bias Of Technological Change In Canadian Manufacturing Industries

The paper tests whether technological change has been neutral in Canadian manufacturing industries, using a system of translog cost share equations for 1962 through 1986. The model features two classes of labor treated as distinct inputs. Tests rejected homotheticity in all industries. Hicks neutrality was also rejected in 16 of 18 industries. The most common pattern of nonneutral technical change was a bias away from blue-collar workers. Formal tests for skill-neutral innovation rejected the hypothesis in ten industries in favor of skill-using technical change. The results suggest that in studies of Canadian manufacturing, aggregation across labor inputs is inappropriate.

Incentives and Equity under Standards-based Reform

The paper considers theoretical and empirical evidence on the impact of standards-based school reform. Our theoretical synthesis distinguishes between sorting and incentive effects of high standards, and spells out the potential tradeoffs and complementarities between enhancing efficiency and equity in student achievement. Differentiated credentials can be helpful in ameliorating tradeoffs, provided that distinct signals are clearly understood, especially between cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The paper reviews trends in state-level school accountability systems, and examines empirical evidence on the impact of increased standards and expectations on student achievement. Finally, the paper reviews some of the practical challenges facing the standards movement.

Key difficulties in identifying the effects of ability grouping on student achievement

Abstract The paper presents empirical evidence that earlier research may have overstated the impact of ability grouping and tracking on inequality in student achievement. We list six key difficulties facing research on the effects of grouping on student achievement. Each of these difficulties offers opportunities for further research and for collection of more appropriate data sets. Strong conclusions as to the differential effect of ability grouping on high-achieving and low-achieving students are probably not yet warranted. [JEL I21]

Do Unions Reduce Investment?: Evidence from Canada

The authors test for a link between unionization and net investment rates in Canadian manufacturing. Analysis of data on 18 industries for the years 1967–87 reveals a negative non-linear relationship: the presence of unions appears to have reduced investment when the percentage of firms in the industry that were unionized was between 0% and approximately 50%, with a plateau or slight positive marginal effect above this level. In an industry moving from no unions to the mean level of unionization, net investment and gross investment are predicted to fall by 66–74% and 18–25%, respectively.

The Integrating and Segregating Effects of School Choice.

We evaluate the integrating and segregating effects of three distinct school choice programs in San Diego. We go beyond the traditional question of racial integration and examine the integration of students by test scores, parental education levels, and language status. In addition to measuring the net integrative effects of school choice, we also examine the underlying motives behind student participation in school choice programs and the limiting influence of supply-side constraints. Two of the programs that we consider are rooted in 1970s integration-based reforms that provide public transportation for program participants. The third program is a state-mandated, open-enrollment program that requires participants to find their own transportation to and from their choice schools. We find that the two programs with underlying integrative objectives do indeed integrate the district, but the open-enrollment program segregates the district along most dimensions. Provision of busing and geographic preferences appear to be important factors in promoting integration.