The Effect of Providing Breakfast on Student Performance: Evidence from an In-Class Breakfast Program

In response to low take-up, many public schools have experimented with moving breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom. We examine whether such a program increases performance as measured by standardized test scores, grades and attendance rates. We exploit quasi-random timing of program implementation that allows for a difference-in-differences identification strategy. Our main identification assumption is that schools where the program was introduced earlier would have evolved similarly to those where the program was introduced later. We find that in-class breakfast increases both math and reading achievement by about one-tenth of a standard deviation relative to providing breakfast in the cafeteria. Moreover, we find that these effects are most pronounced for low performing, free-lunch eligible, Hispanic, and low BMI students. We also find some improvements in attendance for high achieving students but no impact on grades.

Why are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity

This chapter, which addresses three categories of explanation—the characteristics of individuals insured by the Disability Insurance (DI) program, the state of the economy, and the generosity of program benefits—argues that the growth in DI rolls is likely to continue and perhaps accelerate going forward. The data indicate that the recessions of 1991 and 2001 can explain 24 percent of the growth in DI receipt among men and 12 percent of the growth among women. Changes in health during the past two decades have slowed rather than added to the growth of the DI rolls. DI awards for certain conditions were much more affected by the liberalized medical eligibility criteria than others. The aging of the Baby Boom population will result in significant increases in DI receipt during the next fifteen years. The incentive to apply for DI will increase with the rising value of health insurance through Medicare

Dressed for Success? The Effect of School Uniforms on Student Achievement and Behavior

Uniform use in public schools is rising, but we know little about how they affect students. Using a unique dataset from a large urban school district in the southwest United States, we assess how uniforms affect behavior, achievement and other outcomes. Each school in the district determines adoption independently, providing variation over schools and time. By including student and school fixed-effects we find evidence that uniform adoption improves attendance in secondary grades, while in elementary schools they generate large increases in teacher retention.

Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea? Assessing the Impact of Gifted and Talented Programs on Achievement

In this paper we determine how the receipt of gifted and talented (GT) services affects student outcomes. We identify the causal relationship by exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility requirements and find that for students on the margin there is no discernable impact on achievement even though peers improve substantially. We then use randomized lotteries to examine the impact of attending a GT magnet program relative to GT programs in other schools and find that, despite being exposed to higher quality teachers and peers that are one standard deviation higher achieving, only science achievement improves. We argue that these results are consistent with an invidious comparison model of peer effects offsetting other benefits. Evidence of large reductions in course grades and rank relative to peers in both regression discontinuity and lottery models are consistent with this explanation.

The effect of charter schools on achievement and behavior of public school students

Charter schools have seen dramatic growth over the last decade. However, we know little about how they affect traditional public schools. I look at how charters affect student outcomes in public schools using data from a large urban school district in the southwest. Unlike prior work that relies on school fixed effects, I address the endogenous location of charter schools using an instrumental variables strategy that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in local building supply. Results show that charters induce modest but statistically significant drops in math and language test scores, particularly for elementary students. However, results for middle and high school students show improvements in discipline.Charter schools Achievement Behavior School choice

Does the Market Value Value-Added? Evidence from Housing Prices After a Public Release of School and Teacher Value-Added

Value-added data have become an increasingly common evaluation tool for schools and teachers. Many school districts have begun to adopt these methods and have released results publicly. In this paper, we use the unique release of value-added data in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Times newspaper and the Los Angeles Unified School District to identify how school quality, as measured by value-added, is capitalized into housing prices. Unique to this setting is the release of both school and teacher-level value-added data, and this analysis is the first in the school valuation literature to examine property value responses to variation in teacher quality information. Using a difference-in-differences methodology surrounding several releases of value-added information, we find no effect on property values of receiving a higher value-added ranking post-information release. Neither the school or teacher value-added information is capitalized into home prices, even though we find evidence that test score levels are capitalized into home prices. Our results suggest that, despite the contentiousness following these data releases, homeowners and parents do not consider value-added to be a relevant school quality measure on the margin. ∗We would like to thank seminar participants at APPAM, CES-Ifo, Georgetown and the University of Michigan along with Steve Rivkin, Guido Schwerdt, Gary Solon, and Kevin Stange for helpful comments an