Mobility, targeting and private school vouchers

This paper uses general equilibrium simulations to explore the role ofresidential mobility in shaping the impact of different types of private school voucher policies. In particular, general vouchers available to all residents in the state are compared to vouchers specifically targeted to either underprivileged school districts or underprivileged households. The simulations are derived from a three-community mo deI of low, middle and high income school districts (calibrated to New York data), where each school district is composed of multiple types of neighborhoods that may vary in house quality as well as the leveI of neighborhood extemalities. Households that differ in both their income and in the ability leveI of their children choose between school districts, between neighborhoods within their school district, and between the local public school or a menu of private school altematives.Local public school quality within a district is endogenously determined bya combination of the average peer quality of public school attending children as well as local property and state income tax supported spending. Financial support (above a required state minimum) is set by local majority rule. Finally, there exists the potential for a private school market composed of competitive schools that face production technologies similar to those ofpublic schools but who set tuition and admissions policies to maximize profits. In tbis model, it is demonstrated that school district targeted vouchers are similar in their impact to non-targeted vouchers but vastIy different from vouchers targeted to low income households. Furthermore, strong migration effects are shown to significantly improve the likely equity consequences of voucher programs.

Universal Vouchers and White Flight

Opponents of school vouchers often argue that school vouchers will lead to 'white flight' from public schools that are disproportionately nonwhite, creating more racially segregated schools. However, recent studies that examine white flight from public schools into private schools have produced conflicting evidence on whether or not white flight actually exists. In this paper, we present new evidence on whether universal vouchers will lead to more racially segregated schools. Specifically, we use data on vote outcomes from a state-wide universal voucher initiative to estimate the likelihood that white households with children currently in public schools will use vouchers to switch out of more-integrated schools. Our results indicate that white households with children attending schools with large concentrations of nonwhite schoolchildren are significantly more likely to support school vouchers, an effect that is absent for non-white households with children and households without children. However, it also does not appear to be race, per se, that is the primary concern, but other school factors that are correlated with race, such as test scores and limited English proficiency.

Interacciones de género estudiante-profesor, deserción y rendimiento académico en Colombia

En este trabajo se estima el efecto del género del profesor sobre la deserción y el rendimiento educativo de los estudiantes en Colombia durante el periodo 2009-2012. La estrategia empírica se fundamenta en un modelo de regresión lineal que establece la relación entre la proporción de profesoras interactuada con el género del estudiante. Los resultados sugieren que existe un sesgo de selección debido a que las profesoras aumentan la probabilidad de que las niñas finalicen la educación media, lo que implica que la composición de habilidades entre hombres y mujeres no es la misma. Luego de corregir este sesgo de selección, se encuentra un resultado significativo en el género del profesor. Un aumento de una desviación estándar en la proporción de profesoras incrementa en 0.01 desviaciones estándar el puntaje de los niños en la prueba de matemáticas y el puntaje de las niñas en la prueba de lenguaje. Este trabajo utiliza información proveniente de la prueba Saber 11, la Resolución 166 y el concurso docente.

Tiebout Choice and the Voucher

This paper examines who is likely to gain and who is likely to lose under a universal voucher program. Following Epple and Romano (1998, 2003), and Nechyba (2000, 2003a), we focus on the idea that gains and losses under a universal voucher depend on two effects: changes in peer group composition and changes in housing values. We show that the direction and magnitude of each of these effects hinges critically on market structure, i.e., the amount of school choice that already exists in the public sector. In markets with little or no Tiebout choice, potential changes in peer group composition create an incentive for high-socioeconomic (SES) households to vote for the voucher and for low-SES households to vote against voucher. In contrast, in markets with significant Tiebout choice, potential changes in housing values create an incentive for high-SES households to vote against the voucher and for low-SES households to vote for the voucher. Using data on vote outcomes from California's 2000 voucher initiative, we find evidence consistent with those predictions.

Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China's Secondary Schools (Working Paper 35)

Peer effects have figured prominently in debates on school vouchers, desegregation, ability tracking and anti-poverty programs. Compelling evidence of their existence remains scarce for plaguing endogeneity issues such as selection bias and the reflection problem. This paper is among the first to firmly establish the link between peer performance and student achievement, using a unique dataset from China. We find strong evidence that peer effects exist and operate in a positive and nonlinear manner; reducing the variation of peer performance increases achievement; and our semi-parametric estimates clarify the tradeoffs facing policymakers in exploiting positive peers effects to increase future achievement.

A note on sampling chironomids for RNA-based studies of natural populations that retains critical morphological vouchers

The rapid uptake of transcriptomic approaches in freshwater ecology has seen a wealth of data produced concerning the ways in which organisms interact with their environment on a molecular level. Typically, such studies focus either at the community level and so don’t require species identifications, or on laboratory strains of known species identity or natural populations of large, easily identifiable taxa. For chironomids, impediments still exist for applying these technologies to natural populations because they are small-bodied and often require time-consuming secondary sorting of stream material and morphological voucher preparation to confirm species diagnosis. These procedures limit the ability to maintain RNA quantity and quality in such organisms because RNA degrades rapidly and gene expression can be altered rapidly in organisms; thereby limiting the inclusion of such taxa in transcriptomic studies. Here, we demonstrate that these limitations can be overcome and outline an optimised protocol for collecting, sorting and preserving chironomid larvae that enables retention of both morphological vouchers and RNA for subsequent transcriptomics purposes. By ensuring that sorting and voucher preparation are completed within <4 hours after collection and that samples are kept cold at all times, we successfully retained both RNA and morphological vouchers from all specimens. Although not prescriptive in specific methodology, we anticipate that this paper will assist in promoting transcriptomic investigations of the sublethal impact on chironomid gene expression of changes to aquatic environments.

Growth,distribution and school policy

This paper investigates the relationship between growth, income inequality, and educational policies. An endogenous growth model is built in which there are two types of labor, skilled and unskilled, and the quality of the labor force (measured by the fraction of skilled workers) will ultimately determine the economic growth rate. We show that multi pIe inequality and growth paths may arise. Countries will not necessarily converge to the same economic growth and income distribution. When the proportion of skilled workers is low, the economy grows slow, and the Gini coeflicient is high. Low expected growth rate inhibits investments in human capital and the quality of the labor force tomorrow turns out to be low again, keeping the economy in the bad equilibrium. We then analyze the effects on growth and inequality of two types of government intervention: introduction of public schools and vouchers. Both types can induce the economic agents to invest more in education. The consequence will be an increase in the quality of the labor force, leading to higher growth rates and less inequality. Finally, we examine the welfare consequences of these interventions and conclude that they may be Pareto improving.