Tracking students in secondary education : consequences for student performance and inequality

This dissertation examined whether the classification of secondary school pupils into different academic levels (e.g. VMBO (preparatory secondary vocational education), HAVO (senior general secondary education), VWO (pre-university education)) improves academic performance and whether it influences the academic opportunities. For instance, we found that pupils who are about to transition to HAVO or VWO perform better at VWO level and that pupils with highly educated parents receive better academic advice from their teacher in group 8 than their academic performance warrants. We also found that early learners are often categorised at a lower academic level than late learners, and even more so in countries with early selection criteria. This additional misallocation in countries with early selection has little impact on the long-term outcomes like final academic level or salary scale

The education revolution on horseback II : using the Napoleonic wars to elicit the effect of tracking on student performance

Previous literature has found inconsistent effects of tracking students in secondary school on student performance using various ways to alleviate the endogeneity in tracking. Sociological literature argues that the threat for war with and invasion by the French around the 1800s induced European countries to introduce mass public education systems. I use this theory to estimate the effect of tracking on student performance in Europe, instrumenting tracking by the political pressure caused by the Napoleonic Wars. The relation between political pressure by Napoleon and tracking is strong and leads in the second stage to a consistent positive effect of tracking on student performance. One important limitation of this analysis is that it is reasonable to assume that political pressure from Napoleon influenced many facets of European countries

Evaluatie van het School-Ex 2.0 programma. De rol van studiekeuze- en exitgesprekken in het MBO

In het voorjaar van 2013 verkeerde Nederland voor het vijfde jaar in een economische malaise. Om het oplopen van de jeugdwerkloosheid te temperen, zijn de (aanstaande) gediplomeerden van het MBO in de zomer middels het School Ex 2.0 programma aangespoord om door te leren. Hiermee is getracht om een vervolg te geven aan het eerste School Ex programma dat in de jaren 2009 en 2010 is uitgevoerd. Het recente programma dat in 2013 gestart is, is daarbij uitgebreid met zogenaamde Ombuigingsgesprekken. Deze gesprekken zijn bedoeld om jongeren die instromen in het MBO en zich aanmelden voor een opleiding met in het algemeen slechte arbeidsmarktperspectieven, in gesprekken om te buigen naar opleidingen met betere arbeidsmarktperspectieven

Odderon and seven Pomerons: QCD Reggeon field theory from JIMWLK evolution

We reinterpret the JIMWLK/KLWMIJ evolution equation as the QCD Reggeon field theory (RFT). The basic "quantum Reggeon field" in this theory is the unitary matrix $R$ which represents the single gluon scattering matrix. We discuss the peculiarities of the Hilbert space on which the RFT Hamiltonian acts. We develop a perturbative expansion in the RFT framework, and find several eigenstates of the zeroth order Hamiltonian. The zeroth order of this perturbation preserves the number of $s$ - channel gluons. The eigenstates have a natural interpretation in terms of the $t$ - channel exchanges. Studying the single $s$ - channel gluon sector we find the eigenstates which include the reggeized gluon and five other colored Reggeons. In the two ($s$ - channel) gluon sector we study only singlet color exchanges. We find five charge conjugation even states. The bound state of two reggeized gluons is the standard BFKL Pomeron. The intercepts of the other Pomerons in the large $N$ limit are $1+\omega_P=1+2\omega$ where $1+\omega$ is the intercept of the BFKL Pomeron, but their coupling in perturbation theory is suppressed by at least $1/N^2$ relative to the double BFKL Pomeron exchange. For the $[27,27]$ Pomeron we find $\omega_{[27,27]}=2\omega+O(1/N)>2\omega$. We also find three charge conjugation odd exchanges, one of which is the unit intercept Bartels-Lipatov-Vacca Odderon, while another one has an interecept greater than unity. We explain in what sense our calculation goes beyond the standard BFKL/BKP calculation. We make additional comments and discuss open questions in our approach.Comment: 58 pages, 4 figures, Extended version. To appear in JHE

Deconfining Phase Transition as a Matrix Model of Renormalized Polyakov Loops

We discuss how to extract renormalized from bare Polyakov loops in SU(N) lattice gauge theories at nonzero temperature in four spacetime dimensions. Single loops in an irreducible representation are multiplicatively renormalized without mixing, through a renormalization constant which depends upon both representation and temperature. The values of renormalized loops in the four lowest representations of SU(3) were measured numerically on small, coarse lattices. We find that in magnitude, condensates for the sextet and octet loops are approximately the square of the triplet loop. This agrees with a large $N$ expansion, where factorization implies that the expectation values of loops in adjoint and higher representations are just powers of fundamental and anti-fundamental loops. For three colors, numerically the corrections to the large $N$ relations are greatest for the sextet loop, $\leq 25$; these represent corrections of $\sim 1/N$ for N=3. The values of the renormalized triplet loop can be described by an SU(3) matrix model, with an effective action dominated by the triplet loop. In several ways, the deconfining phase transition for N=3 appears to be like that in the $N=\infty$ matrix model of Gross and Witten.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2, 27 pages, 12 figures, extended discussion for clarity, results unchange

The pre-tracking effects of parental background

Tracking students in secondary school could increase the effect of parental background (PB) on student performance, especially if parents can influence the track choice. This influence can be either direct or indirect, and either purposefully or not. Little is known about these indirect effects of PB that could arise before tracking has taken place. In the Netherlands the track placement decision of individual students is made by secondary schools that base their decision on two performance signals that they receive from the elementary school of applying students: an elementary school exit test score and an elementary school teacher track recommendation. Using longitudinal data from the Netherlands, I find that high PB parents are able to increase their child’s teacher recommendation (purposefully or not): The odds of having the highest track recommendation as compared to the other recommendations, for students whose parents have a tertiary education degree are between 1.6 and 3.6 times greater than for students whose parents only have a primary education degree. For the math exit test score I find no effect, while for reading an effect is found but not robust