Patrick J. McEwan

Peer effects on student achievement: evidence from Chile

Abstract This paper reports estimates of peer effects on student achievement, using a 1997 census of eighth-grade achievement in Chile. The data allow detailed measures of peer characteristics to be constructed for each classroom within a school. The paper addresses the endogeneity of peer variables by including school fixed effects that control for unobserved family and student characteristics. The estimates suggest that the classroom mean of mothers’ education is an important determinant of individual achievement, though subject to diminishing marginal returns. Additional specifications using family fixed effects are not suggestive that estimates are biased by within-school sorting.

The Benefits of Delayed Primary School Enrollment: Discontinuity Estimates Using Exact Birth Dates

The paper estimates the effect of delayed school enrollment on student outcomes, using administrative data on Chilean students that include exact birth dates. Regression-discontinuity estimates, based on enrollment cutoffs, show that a one-year delay decreases the probability of repeating first grade by two percentage points, and increases fourth and eighth grade test scores by more than 0.3 standard deviations, with larger effects for boys. The paper concludes with implications for enrollment age policy.

Improving Learning in Primary Schools of Developing Countries A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Experiments

I gathered 77 randomized experiments (with 111 treatment arms) that evaluated the effects of school-based interventions on learning in developing-country primary schools. On average, monetary grants and deworming treatments had mean effect sizes that were close to zero and not statistically significant. Nutritional treatments, treatments that disseminated information, and treatments that improved school management or supervision, had small mean effect sizes (0.04–0.06) that were not always robust to controls for study moderators. The largest mean effect sizes included treatments with computers or instructional technology (0.15); teacher training (0.12); smaller classes, smaller learning groups within classes, or ability grouping (0.12); contract or volunteer teachers (0.10); student and teacher performance incentives (0.09); and instructional materials (0.08). Metaregressions suggested that the effects of contract teachers and materials were partly accounted for by composite treatments that included training and/or class size reduction. There are insufficient data to judge the relative cost-effectiveness of categories of interventions.

The Potential Impact of Large-Scale Voucher Programs

This review assesses the potential impact of large-scale voucher programs, drawing on empirical literature in economics, education, and sociology. The discussion is guided by three research questions, grounded within an economic framework. First, are private schools more efficient than public schools? Second, does the increasingly competitive schooling market promoted by vouchers cause public schools to become more efficient? And third, do vouchers result in increased student sorting across public and private schools–perhaps increasing segregation by socioeconomic status–and what does sorting portend for student outcomes? For some questions, there is a paucity of credible evidence. For others, evidence from non-voucher systems is used inappropriately to forecast the impact of vouchers. The review concludes that empirical evidence is not sufficiently compelling to justify, either strong advocacy or opposition to large-scale voucher programs.

The Indigenous Test Score Gap in Bolivia and Chile

This article analyzes the magnitude and determinants of the indigenous test score gap in Bolivia and Chile (i.e., the mean difference in academic achievement between indigenous and nonindigenous children). In both countries, it finds that the gap ranges between 0.3 and 0.5 standard deviations, favoring nonindigenous children. A decomposition of achievement regressions that include classroom fixed effects suggests that 50%–70% of the difference is attributable to differences in schools and classrooms that are attended by indigenous and nonindigenous students. A smaller proportion (20%–40%) is attributable to varying endowments of family variables like parental education. The smallest proportion of the gap (10%–20%) is unexplained. Several implications for policy are discussed in light of the results.

Recruitment of Rural Teachers in Developing Countries: An Economic Analysis.

Abstract Monetary and non-monetary incentives for rural teacher recruitment are a prominent feature of developing-country education systems. Despite the widespread use of incentives, there is little theoretical or empirical evidence on their effectiveness. This paper interprets incentive policies within the framework of the economic theory of compensating differentials. The discussion clarifies the implicit assumptions of incentive policies and aids in organizing further empirical work on their effectiveness. Existing evidence on compensating differentials, mainly in the United States, shows that teachers tend to trade off monetary wages against non-monetary aspects of their jobs, such as geographic location and class size.

The effectiveness of multigrade schools in Colombia

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the Colombian New School ( Escuela Nueva) program in raising student achievement in Spanish and mathematics. Typical program strategies include multigrade instruction, flexible student promotion, and community involvement. The paper finds that New Schools are better endowed with inputs like textbooks and place greater emphasis on active learning than traditional rural schools. Nevertheless, many New Schools have not implemented all the reforms. New Schools are found to have positive and statistically significant effects on Spanish and mathematics achievement in third grade and Spanish in fifth grade. Findings replicate previous evaluations.

Constraints to Implementing Educational Innovations: The Case of Multigrade Schools

Studies suggest that multigrade schools, i.e. those with classes that are mixed in age and ability, can be a cost-effective means of raising student achievement and expanding access to education in poor countries. Development institutions often recommend them for countries struggling to raise educational quality and coverage in rural areas. However, the literature advocating the adoption of multigrade schools avoids discussing the potential difficulties in implementing the system. This paper analyses the conditons under which implementation might be successful, focusing on the oft-cited case of the Colombian Escuela Nuela programme. The authors conclude that capacity-building through in-service training is an important determinant of the way teachers approach their task. However, a great deal of variance in teacher practices is left unexplained. The article suggests that teacher will (that is, motivation and commitment) might explain much of the remaining variation in the adoption of the new pedagogies. The authors explore several conditions under which teacher will could be lacking.

School Choice, Stratification, and Information on School Performance: Lessons from Chile

In the early 1980s, Chile implemented a nationwide school choice system, under which the government finances education via a flat per-student sub- sidy (or voucher) to the public or private school chosen by a family. At present, about 94 percent of all schools (public, religious, and secular private) are voucher funded. More than half of urban schools are private, and most of these operate as for-profit institutions.1 Since the early 1990s, Chile has also publicized information on school performance and increased per pupil expen- diture substantially. Despite these and other reforms, Chile has found it challenging to improve students’ learning outcomes.2 Hsieh and Urquiola find that the country’s rel- ative performance in international tests did not change much between 1970 and 1999.3 Its performance on the 2000 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is not only much lower than the OECD average but is similar to that of other Latin American countries and low relative to countries with similar income per capita.

The Heterogeneous Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers

The Honduran PRAF experiment randomly assigned conditional cash transfers to 40 of 70 poor municipalities, within five strata defined by a poverty proxy. Using census data, we show that eligible children were 8 percentage points more likely to enroll in school and 3 percentage points less likely to work. The effects were much larger in the two poorest strata, and statistically insignificant in the other three (the latter finding is robust to the use of a separate regression-discontinuity design). Heterogeneity confirms the importance of judicious targeting to maximize the impact and cost-effectiveness of CCTs. There is no consistent evidence of effects on ineligible children or on adult labor supply.