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Private school vouchers and student achievement: A fixed effects quantile regression evaluation

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  • Lamarche, Carlos

Abstract

Fundamental to the recent debate over school choice is the issue of whether voucher programs actually improve students' academic achievement. Using newly developed quantile regression approaches, this paper investigates the distribution of achievement gains in the first school voucher program implemented in the US. We find that while high-performing students selected for the Milwaukee Parental Choice program had a positive, convexly increasing gain in mathematics, low-performing students had a nearly linear loss. However, the program seems to prevent low-performing students from having an even bigger loss experienced by students in the public schools.

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  • Lamarche, Carlos, 2008. "Private school vouchers and student achievement: A fixed effects quantile regression evaluation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 575-590, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:575-590
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    Cited by:

    1. Arulampalam, Wiji & Naylor, Robin A. & Smith, Jeremy, 2012. "Am I missing something? The effects of absence from class on student performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 363-375.
    2. Frantisek Cech & Jozef Barunik, 2017. "Measurement of Common Risk Factors: A Panel Quantile Regression Model for Returns," Papers 1708.08622, arXiv.org.
    3. Tavares, Priscilla Albuquerque, 2015. "The impact of school management practices on educational performance: Evidence from public schools in São Paulo," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-15.
    4. Damette, Olivier & Delacote, Philippe, 2012. "On the economic factors of deforestation: What can we learn from quantile analysis?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2427-2434.
    5. Changhui Kang & Yoonsoo Park, 2021. "Private Tutoring and Distribution of Student Academic Outcomes: An Implication of the Presence of Private Tutoring for Educational Inequality," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 37, pages 287-326.
    6. Harding, Matthew & Lamarche, Carlos, 2009. "A quantile regression approach for estimating panel data models using instrumental variables," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 133-135, September.
    7. Carlos Lamarche, 2013. "Industry-wide work rules and productivity: evidence from Argentine union contract data," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-25, December.
    8. Baruník, Jozef & Čech, František, 2021. "Measurement of common risks in tails: A panel quantile regression model for financial returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    I21 I28 School choice Vouchers Milwaukee Fixed effects Quantile regression;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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