Does school autonomy improve educational outcomes? Judging the performance of foundation secondary schools in England

Government and researchers use school performance measures such as contextual value-added to claim that giving schools autonomy from local authority control produces superior pupil performance in GCSE examinations. This paper explores the extent to which inferring causality between autonomy and pupil achievement is reasonable given that pupils are not randomly assigned to schools and schools do not randomly acquire autonomous status. Rich administrative data and the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England are used to evaluate whether CVA-style inferences are confounded by pupil characteristics that explain both the chances of attending an autonomous school and academic achievement. The assignment of grant-maintained (and thus now foundation) status through a vote of parents is used to compare school that just did, and just did not, gain autonomy over a decade ago. These alternative estimation strategies suggest there is little evidence that foundation status casually yields superior school performance.school autonomy, school effectiveness, foundation schools

Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice

One of the key components of any school choice system is the information given to parents as the basis for choice. We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural, implementable metric. The best content for school performance tables is the statistic that best answers the question: “In which feasible choice school will a particular child achieve the highest exam score?” We implement this approach for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is strongly better than choosing at random: a child who attends the highest ex ante performing school within their choice set will ex post do better than the average outcome in their choice set twice as often as they will do worse.school choice, performance tables

Can school competition improve standards? The case of faith schools in England

This paper measures the extent to which the presence of religious state-funded secondary schools in England impacts on the educational experiences of pupils who attend neighbouring schools, whether through school effort induced by competition or changes in peer groups induced by sorting. National administrative data is used to estimate pupil test score growth models between the ages of 11 and 16, with instrumental variable methods employed to avoid confounding the direct causal effect of religious schools. It finds significant evidence that religious schools are associated with higher levels of pupil sorting across schools, but no evidence that competition from faith schools raises area-wide pupil attainment.school choice, school competition, educational outcomes

What Should an Index of School Segregation Measure?

Segregation, Choice, Schools, School Admissions

More Reliable Inference for Segregation Indices

The most widely used measure of segregation is the dissimilarity index, D. It is now well understood that this measure also reflects randomness in the allocation of individuals to units; that is, it measures deviations from evenness not deviations from randomness. This leads to potentially large values of the segregation index when unit sizes and/or minority proportions are small, even if there is no underlying systematic segregation. Our response to this is to produce an adjustment to the index, based on an underlying statistical model. We specify the assignment problem in a very general way, with differences in conditional assignment probabilities underlying the resulting segregation. From this we derive a likelihood ratio test for the presence of any systematic segregation and a bootstrap bias adjustment to the dissimilarity index. We further develop the asymptotic distribution theory for testing hypotheses concerning the magnitude of the segregation index and show that use of bootstrap methods can improve the size and power properties of test procedures considerably. We illustrate these methods by comparing dissimilarity indices across school districts in England to measure social segregation.segregation, dissimilarity index, bootstrap methods, hypothesis testing

The early impact of Brighton and Hove's school admission reforms

We analyse the initial impact of a major school admission reform in Brighton and Hove. The new system incorporated a lottery for oversubscribed places and new catchment areas. We examine the post-reform changes in school composition. We locate the major winners and losers in terms of the quality of school attended. We match similar cities and conduct a difference-in-difference analysis of the policy change. We see no significant change in student sorting: if anything, the point estimates suggest a rise in socio-economic segregation. We do see a significant weakening of the dependence of school attended on student’s prior attainment.school lottery, segregation, school admissions reforms

Fuel Tax Incidence in Developing Countries: The Case of Costa Rica

Although fuel taxes are a practical means of curbing vehicular air pollution, congestion, and accidents in developing countries--all of which are typically major problems--they are often opposed on distributional grounds. Yet few studies have investigated fuel tax incidence in a developing country context. We use household survey data and income-outcome coefficients to analyze fuel tax incidence in Costa Rica. We find that the effect of a 10 percent fuel price hike through direct spending on gasoline would be progressive, its effect through spending on diesel--both directly and via bus transportation--would be regressive (mainly because poorer households rely heavily on buses), and its effect through spending on goods other than fuel and bus transportation would be relatively small, albeit regressive. Finally, we find that although the overall effect of a 10 percent fuel price hike through all types of direct and indirect spending would be slightly regressive, the magnitude of this combined effect would be modest. We conclude that distributional concerns need not rule out using fuel taxes to address pressing public health and safety problems, particularly if gasoline and diesel taxes can be differentiated.fuel tax incidence, transportation, Costa Rica

Choosing secondary school by moving house: school quality and the formation of neighbourhoods

This paper uses the pupil census in England to explore how family house moves contribute to school and residential segregation. We track the moves of a single cohort as it approaches the secondary school admission age. We also combine a number of cohorts and estimate a dynamic nonlinear model for house moving with unobserved effects. These approaches yield the same result: moving is significantly negatively correlated with school quality, and segregation does increase as a cohort reaches age 11. However, this relationship is weak: the increase in segregation is slight and quantitative significance of the estimated relationship is low.school quality, moving, segregation, neighbourhoods

Lessons from Isadora : Re-Examining a Century Old Creative Process to Create New Movement and Expression

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was a dance artist whose rejection of ballet and theatrical spectacle set into motion the beginnings of modern concert dance. Isadora’s interest in self-expression and use of the breath set her apart from other choreographers of the time. As a contemporary choreographer surrounded by many modern stimuli, I am drawn to Isadora’s internally focused method for creating her dances. Isadora Duncan developed a process for creating movement consisting of breathing into an area of the body known as the solar plexus and waiting for internal inspiration, without force or affected design, to move her. Working and creating in New York City I am impacted by the typical fast-paced lifestyle of a big city, but also bombarded with other external information through technology, social media, and ego-centric pressures. In an attempt to see if a change in how I approach my choreographic process would result in a change in the choreographic product, I experimented with Isadora’s internally focused, solar plexus breathing technique as the impetus for creating movement with my company. In the last year, I have embodied Isadora’s philosophy, process and repertory and wanted to experiment with her method of manifesting the breath and focusing solely on the internal response to see how her breath centered preparation would inform or even change how I generate movement and create work