The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools
The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools
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DOI：
10.3386/w17264
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发表时间：
2011-07
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Atila Abdulkadiroglu;J. Angrist;Parag A. Pathak
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文献类型：
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作者：
Atila Abdulkadiroglu;J. Angrist;Parag A. Pathak
才华横溢的学生为争夺波士顿和纽约考试学校的席位而展开激烈竞争。这些学校的特点是高水平的同侪成绩以及针对每个学区成绩最高的学生量身定制的高要求课程。虽然考试学校的学生在学校表现很好，但考试学校的教育是否比常规的公共教育更具价值的问题仍然悬而未决。我们使用断点回归设计来估计考试学校出勤率的因果效应，报告参数和非参数估计。这里研究的结果包括州标准化成绩测试的分数、PSAT 和 SAT 的参与情况和分数以及 AP 分数。我们的估计显示，考试学校提供的考试对大多数学生的成绩影响不大。我们使用两阶段最小二乘法将考试学校提供的效果的简化形式估计转换为同伴和跟踪效果的估计，认为这些在这种情况下似乎并不重要。最后，我们探讨了 RD 估计的外部有效性，认为据我们所知，即使对于能力最高的边际申请者和招生截止点右侧的申请者来说，考试学校教育对成绩的影响也很小。另一方面，波士顿考试学校的教育似乎对少数族裔申请者的高中英语成绩影响不大。一小部分 9 年级申请者似乎在 SAT 推理方面也取得了更好的成绩。尽管取得了这些局部收益，但考试学校席位的激烈竞争似乎并不能通过改善广大学生的学习来证明是合理的。
Talented students compete fiercely for seats at Boston and New York exam schools. These schools are characterized by high levels of peer achievement and a demanding curriculum tailored to each district's highest achievers. While exam school students do very well in school, the question of whether an exam school education adds value relative to a regular public education remains open. We estimate the causal effect of exam school attendance using a regression-discontinuity design, reporting both parametric and non- parametric estimates. The outcomes studied here include scores on state standardized achievement tests, PSAT and SAT participation and scores, and AP scores. Our estimates show little effect of exam school offers on most students' achievement. We use two-stage least squares to convert reduced form estimates of the effects of exam school offers into estimates of peer and tracking effects, arguing that these appear to be unimportant in this context. Finally, we explore the external validity of RD estimates, arguing that as best we can tell, there is little effect of an exam school education on achievement even for the highest-ability marginal applicants and for applicants to the right of admissions cutoffs. On the other hand, a Boston exam school education seems to have a modest effect on high school English scores for minority applicants. A small group of 9th grade applicants also appears to do better on SAT Reasoning. These localized gains notwithstanding, the intense competition for exam school seats does not appear to be justified by improved learning for a broad set of students.