Investing in Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, and Student Achievement (Revised and Edited)

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement. We study the achievement effects of nearly 1,400 capital campaigns initiated and financed by local school districts, comparing districts where school capital bonds were either narrowly approved or narrowly defeated by district voters. Overall, we find little evidence that school capital campaigns improve student achievement. Our event-study analyses focusing on students that attend targeted schools and therefore are exposed to major campus renovations also generate very precise zero estimates of achievement effects. Thus, locally financed school capital campaigns - the predominant method through which facility investments are made - may represent a limited tool for realizing substantial gains in student achievement or closing achievement gaps

Percent Plans, Automatic Admissions, and College Outcomes.

Abstract Access to selective universities is highly sought-after due to the prestige of these institutions and the perception that attending one provides economic opportunities that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. However, there remain large disparities by race and socioeconomic status in who attends these institutions. To help expand access to the state's flagship universities in a way that does not rely on race-conscious affirmative action, Texas passed the Top Ten Percent Plan in 1997, which guarantees automatic admission to any public university in the state to students in the top decile of their high school class. This paper estimates the effect of eligibility for this admissions guarantee on college choice and persistence for students in a large urban school district. We do so using a regression discontinuity design that compares the outcomes of students who barely made it into the top decile to those who barely did not. We find that eligibility for automatic admission has a substantial impact on enrollments at Texas flagship universities and increases the number of semesters enrolled at a flagship university. This increase in flagship enrollment appears to displace enrollment in private or out-ofstate universities but has no effect on overall college enrollment or on the quality of college attended. The effects on flagship enrollment are concentrated in schools that have high college-sending rates (relative to other schools in the district), suggesting that automatic admissions may have little effect on the outcomes of students in the most disadvantaged schools

Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes

Providing remedial (also known as developmental) education is the primary way colleges cope with students who do not have the academic preparation needed to succeed in college-level courses. Remediation is widespread, with nearly one-third of entering freshmen taking remedial courses at an annual cost of at least $$1 billion. Despite its prevalence, there is uncertainty surrounding its short- and longer-run effects. This paper presents new evidence on this question using longitudinal administrative data from Texas and a regression discontinuity research design. We find little indication that remediation improves academic or labor market outcomes. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Replication data for: Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes

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Investing in Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, and Student Achievement (Revised and Edited)

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement. We study the achievement effects of nearly 1,400 capital campaigns initiated and financed by local school districts, comparing districts where school capital bonds were either narrowly approved or narrowly defeated by district voters. Overall, we find little evidence that school capital campaigns improve student achievement. Our event-study analyses focusing on students that attend targeted schools and therefore are exposed to major campus renovations also generate very precise zero estimates of achievement effects. Thus, locally financed school capital campaigns - the predominant method through which facility investments are made - may represent a limited tool for realizing substantial gains in student achievement or closing achievement gaps