The short-term effects of school consolidation on student achievement: Evidence of disruption?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Short-Term Effects of School Consolidation on Student Achievement: Evidence of Disruption? Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe exploit variation stemming from school consolidations in Denmark from 2010-2011 to analyze the impact on student achievement as measured by test scores. For each student we observe enrollment and test scores one year prior to school consolidation and up to four years after. We find that school consolidation has adverse effects on achievement in the short run and that these effects are most pronounced for students exposed to school closings. Furthermore, students initially enrolled in small schools experience the most detrimental effects. The effects appear to weaken over time, suggesting that part of the effect is due to disruption.JEL-Codes: I210, J240.

Efforts in Europe for Data-Driven Improvement of Education – A Review of Learning Analytics Research in Seven Countries

“…Apart from divisions in terms of research focus, the divisions between educational research and econometrics is evidenced by public debates [27] in the wake of public reports on Danish national tests [28]. We speculate that the origin of this divide is determined by the broad field of the researcher; computer scientists engaging in LA are more likely to focus on optimizing, while educational researchers are more likely to link LA data to e.g.…”

“…Some researchers focus on understanding from an educational standpoint [24], others on optimizing from a computer science standpoint [25]. In addition to this division, a third division seems to be between econometrics and educational research, where econometrics as a field is more interested in the effects of intervention and use educational test-data as outcome variables [26].…”

The Effect of School Closures on Teacher Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Texas

“…A growing body of literature has explored the impact of school closure on the academic outcomes of displaced students. Several studies have examined the impact of closures on student test scores, graduation rates, attendance, and neighboring schools that absorb displaced students, finding mixed evidence for the effects of closures on students' educational outcomes (Beuchert et al, 2018;Bross et al, 2016;Brummet, 2014;Carlson & Lavertu, 2015;de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009;Engberg et al, 2012;Gordon et al, 2018;Kemple, 2015;Steinberg & MacDonald, 2019;Stroub & Richards, 2020). While scholars have come to somewhat different conclusions regarding the overall effect of closures on academic achievement in different contexts and using different methodologies, recent work suggests that the relative quality of the schools that closed and to which displaced students transferred are important moderators of the effect of closures on student outcomes (e.g., Bifulco & Schwegman, 2020;Bross et al, 2016;Brummet, 2014;Carlson & Lavertu, 2015;De Haan et al, 2016;de la Torre & Gwynne 2009;Engberg et al, 2012;Stroub & Richards, 2020).…”

The effect of school closings on teacher labor market outcomes and teacher effectiveness

“…Some school closings may be school consolidations. School consolidations involve combining two or more schools, often with the goal of reducing costs through economies of scale, and may have their own unique effects on students and teachers (see, for example, Beuchert et al 2018). Although we do not have formal school consolidation identifiers in our data, they appear to be a small fraction of the school closings we investigate; only 10 percent of school closings in our data involve at least two thirds of the displaced teachers going to the same school, which we consider a generous criterion for identifying school consolidations.…”