IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/23859.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Accountability Incentives in Early Childhood Education

Author

Listed:
  • Daphna Bassok
  • Thomas Dee
  • Scott Latham

Abstract

In an effort to enhance the quality of early childhood education (ECE) at scale, nearly all U.S. states have recently adopted Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). These accountability systems give providers and parents information on program quality and create both reputational and financial incentives for program improvement. However, we know little about whether these accountability reforms operate as theorized. This study provides the first empirical evidence on this question using data from North Carolina, a state with a mature QRIS. Using a regression discontinuity design, we examine how quasi-random assignment to a lower quality rating influenced subsequent outcomes of ECE programs. We find that programs responded to a lower quality rating with comparative performance gains, including improvement on a multi-faceted measure of classroom quality. Programs quasi-randomly assigned to a lower star rating also experienced enrollment declines, which is consistent with the hypothesis that parents responded to information about program quality by selectively enrolling away from programs with lower ratings. These effects were concentrated among programs that faced higher levels of competition from nearby providers.

Suggested Citation

  • Daphna Bassok & Thomas Dee & Scott Latham, 2017. "The Effects of Accountability Incentives in Early Childhood Education," NBER Working Papers 23859, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23859
    Note: ED
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23859.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    2. M. Caridad Araujo & Pedro Carneiro & Yyannú Cruz-Aguayo & Norbert Schady, 2016. "Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1415-1453.
    3. Thomas S. Dee & Brian Jacob, 2011. "The impact of no Child Left Behind on student achievement," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 418-446, June.
    4. Thomas S. Dee & Brian A. Jacob, 2006. "Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or Labor Market Performance?," NBER Working Papers 12199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chris M. Herbst, 2023. "Child Care In The United States: Markets, Policy, And Evidence," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 255-304, January.
    2. Markowitz, Anna J. & Bassok, Daphna & Player, Daniel, 2020. "Simplifying quality rating systems in early childhood education," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Harrison, Linda J. & Andrews, Rebecca & Hadley, Fay & Irvine, Susan & Waniganayake, Manjula & Barblett, Lennie & Davis, Belinda & Hatzigianni, Maria & Li, Hui, 2023. "Protocol for a mixed-methods investigation of quality improvement in early childhood education and care in Australia," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    4. Herbst, Chris M., 2022. "Child Care in the United States: Markets, Policy, and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 15547, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Justin B. Doromal & Molly Michie & Grace Kegley & Daphna Bassok, 2023. "Reducing Complexity to Support Families Navigating Early Care and Education Systems," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 706(1), pages 166-192, March.
    6. Yuta Kuroda, 2022. "What does the disclosure of school quality information bring? The effect through the housing market," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 125-149, January.
    7. Boyd-Swan, Casey & Herbst, Chris M., 2017. "Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in the Labor Market for Child Care Teachers," IZA Discussion Papers 11140, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katherine Caves & Simone Balestra, 2018. "The impact of high school exit exams on graduation rates and achievement," The Journal of Educational Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 111(2), pages 186-200, March.
    2. Markowitz, Anna J. & Bassok, Daphna & Player, Daniel, 2020. "Simplifying quality rating systems in early childhood education," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Harris, Douglas N. & Liu, Lihan & Barrett, Nathan & Li, Ruoxi, 2023. "Is the rise in high school graduation rates real? High-stakes school accountability and strategic behavior," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and its Effects: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of the Impact of its Quantitative Easing Programs," Thesis Commons d7pvg, Center for Open Science.
    5. Jason M. Lindo & Nicholas J. Sanders & Philip Oreopoulos, 2010. "Ability, Gender, and Performance Standards: Evidence from Academic Probation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 95-117, April.
    6. Howard Kunreuther & Erwann Michel-Kerjan, 2015. "Demand for fixed-price multi-year contracts: Experimental evidence from insurance decisions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 171-194, October.
    7. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    8. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    9. Kimbrough, E.O. & Vostroknutov, A., 2012. "Rules, rule-following and cooperation," Research Memorandum 053, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    10. Seth Gershenson, 2016. "Performance Standards and Employee Effort: Evidence From Teacher Absences," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 615-638, June.
    11. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.
    12. Festré, Agnès, 2018. "Do people stand by their commitments? Evidence from a classroom experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-6.
    13. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    14. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    15. Helena Szrek & Li-Wei Chao & Shandir Ramlagan & Karl Peltzer, 2012. "Predicting (un)healthy behavior: A comparison of risk-taking propensity measures," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(6), pages 716-727, November.
    16. Klein Teeselink, Bouke & Potter van Loon, Rogier J.D. & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2020. "Incentives, performance and choking in darts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 38-52.
    17. Steven Kachelmeier & Kristy Towry, 2005. "The Limitations of Experimental Design: A Case Study Involving Monetary Incentive Effects in Laboratory Markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(1), pages 21-33, April.
    18. Georg F. Camehl & Pia S. Schober & C. Katharina Spiess, 2018. "Information asymmetries between parents and educators in German childcare institutions," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 624-646, November.
    19. Idris Idris & Saefudin Zuhri & Mohammad Efendi, 2018. "Determinants of Employee Work Satisfaction," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 8(6), pages 47-52.
    20. Stephen Machin & Sandra McNally & Martina Viarengo, 2018. "Changing How Literacy Is Taught: Evidence on Synthetic Phonics," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 217-241, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23859. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.