Browsing by Subject "Impact Evaluation"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Cross-national impacts of public-private partnerships on equitable student achievement: a quasi-experimental assessment using PISA 2009
    (2013-04) Baum, Donald Rey
    Public-private partnerships are being increasingly supported and advocated for, ideologically and financially, as an approach to educational reform in many countries across the world. Proponents suggest that non-state involvement in the education sector has the potential to bolster international Education for All efforts, improve school governance, increase accountability to students and parents, and improve student cognitive outcomes at a lower cost than providing all basic education services through the state. Although the political support for these partnerships from various financial institutions and reform advocates is extensive, empirical evidence investigating achievement and equity impacts on students is greatly lacking. This dissertation adds a much-needed empirical voice to the debate. I perform a quasi-experimental examination of state education finance and provision practices across 17 countries using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009. Using methods of propensity score matching to reduce the private sector selection bias and hierarchical linear modeling to estimate effects, accounting for a nested data structure, I investigate differences in student cognitive outcomes and equity between public and private education sectors. The work addresses three primary questions: (i) to what extent do students in publicly-funded private schools perform differently than students in public schools?, (ii) to what extent is student socioeconomic status associated with achievement differences?, and (iii) to what extent does student achievement depend upon the school-level characteristics of choice, competition, autonomy, and accountability? This third question deals with a prominent model for engaging the private sector in education, seeking to explain effective education provision through these four key criteria, which are theorized to improve student learning outcomes. The findings of this study somewhat contradict much of what is currently understood about public-private partnerships in education. Much of the current research shows that public-private partnerships have small performance advantages over traditional public schools. The results of this quasi-experimental empirical assessment provide evidence that, holding student and school socioeconomic indicators constant, students in public schools in a number of countries outperform students in publicly-funded private schools. Where these differences occurred, however, they were small, and in the majority of cases there was no difference in performance between public and private schools. In terms of student performance, I find no evidence of systemic inequity in either school sector. That is, low-income students appear to perform at equal levels in public and publicly-funded private schools. However, there is broad cross-country evidence of social discrimination in private sector school access. Enrollment in a private dependent school is associated with higher student socioeconomic status in 13 of 17 countries and publicly-funded private schools are more likely to discriminate in admissions by student academic ability. Keeping these equity findings in mind, I assert that government policy can be used to mitigate inequalities of opportunity through access to public and private school services. This notion entails a more modern view of the state, in which government is not recognized as sole education provider but assumes a larger supervisory capacity focused on regulating learning and guaranteeing equitable educational opportunity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Essays in Economics of Education
    (2019-02) Bueno Rocha Vidigal, Claudia
    This dissertation consists of three essays in the economics of education. It investigates the effects of educational programs in primary and secondary schools in Brazil, as well as the effects of racial and low-income quotas in Brazilian universities. The first essay analyzes the impact of Brazil’s Multifunctional Resources Classroom Inclusion Program on the academic outcomes of disabled and non-disabled students in primary and secondary schools. School fixed effects estimations show that, in general, the Brazilian inclusion program benefits disabled students, especially those enrolled in grades 6-9 and 10-12, with no negative spillover effects onto non-disabled students. The second essay investigates the impact of the Mais Educação Extended School Day Program on academic outcomes in Brazil. The results suggest that this Brazilian longer school day program reduces the dropout rates of students in all grade levels, raises the enrollment of students in grades 6-9, but reduces the enrollment of students in grades 10-12. Moreover, the estimates indicate that the impact on grade promotion is positive for students in grades 6-9, but negative for students in lower grades. Finally, the program seems to increase repetition rates for students in all grade levels. The third essay evaluates the impact of racial and low-income quotas on the academic performance of senior students in Brazilian colleges and universities. Using a panel data approach with school fixed effects, the results show that both the proportion of racial quota students and the proportion of low-income quota students have no statistically significant impact on the academic performance of either quota or non-quota students.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Flattening the Eviction Curve: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Brooklyn Center Tenant Protection Ordinance
    (2024-02-29) Gramlich, Jack
    This paper uses two quasi-experimental methods—synthetic control (SC) and difference-in-differences (DiD)—to evaluate the effects of the 2022 Brooklyn Center Tenant Protection Ordinance. The ordinance was adopted at a time when eviction filings were on the rise across the state. Descriptive statistics provide an indication that after the ordinance was adopted, Brooklyn Center’s eviction rate did not increase by as much as the eviction rate in other parts of suburban Hennepin County. For SC models, I compared Brooklyn Center to most other Hennepin County cities. I found statistically significant evidence that the ordinance reduced eviction rates in the period 37-48 weeks after policy adoption. This result survived several placebo tests (though it was sensitive to whether Brooklyn Park was included in the donor pool). Results for filing rates did not survive all placebo tests. For DiD, I drew from a sample of most block groups in suburban Hennepin County. Conditioning on pre-treatment covariates via doubly robust DiD, I found the policy brought reduced eviction rates and filing rates in some of the first eight months after policy adoption. DiD models survived a wide variety of robustness checks. SC and DiD provided consistent evidence of reduced eviction rates in some periods of time. The two methods produced mixed evidence on filing rates, and did not produce strong evidence of policy effects for other outcomes. This paper concludes that when evictions spiked across Minnesota following the expiration of COVID-19 eviction moratorium policies, the City of Brooklyn Center flattened the eviction curve.