IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sus/susewp/7415.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does lengthening the school day increase students’ academic achievement? Evidence from a natural experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Cabrera-Hernandez

    (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, UK)

Abstract

Mexican educational authorities face a significant and challenging problem of low achievement in standardized tests applied to pupils in primary schools. This research looks at a Full-Time Primary Schools Program implemented in 2007, to work out if changing the time pupils spend at school and a modification in the structure of teaching can enhance skills in language and mathematics. The results of Differences in Differences (DiD) and Propensity Score Match plus DiD, point to a significant impact of the program with an improvement of 0.11 SD on mathematics and Spanish test scores after four years of treatment. More importantly, these improvements are significantly higher in schools located in deprived areas, ranging from 0.12 SD to 0.29 SD on both subjects after two and four years of treatment, respectively. The impacts also show a significant average decrease in the proportion of students graded as ‘insufficient’, combined with an increase of those graded as ‘excellent’. Further analysis on causal channels shows that policy effects do not come from changes in the composition of pupils in treated schools. These findings are of strong significance when laced into the wider education debate about what works best in schools for improving pupil performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Cabrera-Hernandez, 2015. "Does lengthening the school day increase students’ academic achievement? Evidence from a natural experiment," Working Paper Series 7415, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:7415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/documents/wps-74-2015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro & Vermeersch, Christel, 2007. "More time is better : an evaluation of the fulltime school program in Uruguay," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4167, The World Bank.
    2. Paul W. Glewwe & Eric A. Hanushek & Sarah D. Humpage & Renato Ravina, 2011. "School Resources and Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature from 1990 to 2010," NBER Working Papers 17554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Link, Charles R. & Mulligan, James G., 1986. "The merits of a longer school day," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 373-381, August.
    4. Faguet, Jean-Paul & Sánchez, Fabio, 2008. "Decentralization's Effects on Educational Outcomes in Bolivia and Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1294-1316, July.
    5. Eric A. Hanushek, 2004. "Some Simple Analytics of School Quality," NBER Working Papers 10229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    7. Galiani, Sebastian & Gertler, Paul & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2008. "School decentralization: Helping the good get better, but leaving the poor behind," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2106-2120, October.
    8. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra, 2008. "The literacy hour," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1441-1462, June.
    9. Levin, Henry M. & Tsang, Mun C., 1987. "The economics of student time," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 357-364, August.
    10. Susanne James-Burdumy & Mark Dynarski & John Deke, 2005. "When Elementary Schools Stay Open Late: Results from The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers Program," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 747640229207407f9f0f09abf, Mathematica Policy Research.
    11. Jerik Hanushek & Dennis Kimko, 2006. "Schooling, Labor-force Quality, and the Growth of Nations," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 154-193.
    12. Murnane, Richard J & Willett, John B & Levy, Frank, 1995. "The Growing Importance of Cognitive Skills in Wage Determination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(2), pages 251-266, May.
    13. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Shapiro, Joseph, 2006. "Evaluating the impact of Mexico's quality schools program : the pitfalls of using nonexperimental data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4036, The World Bank.
    14. Hanushek, Eric A., 2013. "Economic growth in developing countries: The role of human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 204-212.
    15. Bellei, Cristián, 2009. "Does lengthening the school day increase students' academic achievement? Results from a natural experiment in Chile," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 629-640, October.
    16. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    17. Iftikhar Hussain, 2015. "Subjective Performance Evaluation in the Public Sector: Evidence from School Inspections," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(1), pages 189-221.
    18. Lance Lochner, 2010. "Non-Production Benefits of Education: Crime, Health and Good Citizenship," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 20107, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    19. Brown, Byron W. & Saks, Daniel H., 1987. "The microeconomics of the allocation of teachers' time and student learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 319-332, August.
    20. repec:mpr:mprres:4871 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:mpr:mprres:4551 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Susanne James-Burdumy & Mark Dynarski & Mary Moore & John Deke & Wendy Mansfield & Carol Pistorino, "undated". "When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers Program," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 86c8d763ea6c4acebca8464c5, Mathematica Policy Research.
    23. Heckman, James J. & Robb, Richard Jr., 1985. "Alternative methods for evaluating the impact of interventions : An overview," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 239-267.
    24. Iftikhar Hussain, 2012. "Subjective Performance Evaluation in the Public Sector: Evidence from School Inspections," CEE Discussion Papers 0135, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    25. Richard J. Murnane & John B. Willett & Yves Duhaldeborde & John H. Tyler, 2000. "How important are the cognitive skills of teenagers in predicting subsequent earnings?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 547-568.
    26. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    27. Meyer, E. & Van Klaveren, C., 2011. "Evaluation of an Extended Day Program in the Netherlands: A Randomized Field Experiment," Working Papers 40, Top Institute for Evidence Based Education Research.
    28. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy, 1999. "Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 533-575.
    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. Pedro Paulo Orraca Romano, 2015. "Crime Exposure and Educational Outcomes in Mexico," Working Paper Series 7715, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    2. Orraca Romano, Pedro Paulo, 2016. "Essays on development and labour economics for Mexico," Economics PhD Theses 0816, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. María Padilla-Romo & Francisco Cabrera-Hernández, 2018. "The Effect of Children's Time in School on Mothers' Labor Supply: Evidence from Mexico's Full-Time Schools Program," Working Papers 2018-04, University of Tennessee, Department of Economics.

    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. Cabrera Hernández, Francisco-Javier, 2016. "Essays on the impact evaluation of education policies in Mexico," Economics PhD Theses 0316, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    2. Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre & Merrigan, Philip, 2014. "The distributional impacts of a universal school reform on mathematical achievements: A natural experiment from Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 137-160.
    3. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    4. Hanushek, Eric A. & Luque, Javier A., 2003. "Efficiency and equity in schools around the world," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 481-502, October.
    5. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
    6. Jamison, Eliot A. & Jamison, Dean T. & Hanushek, Eric A., 2007. "The effects of education quality on income growth and mortality decline," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 771-788, December.
    7. Eric Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2012. "Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 267-321, December.
    8. Paula Salinas & Albert Solé-Ollé, 2009. "Evaluating the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes in Spain," Working Papers 2009/10, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. Bernal, Pedro & Mittag, Nikolas & Qureshi, Javaeria A., 2016. "Estimating effects of school quality using multiple proxies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-10.
    10. Figlio, David & Holden, Kristian L. & Ozek, Umut, 2018. "Do students benefit from longer school days? Regression discontinuity evidence from Florida's additional hour of literacy instruction," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 171-183.
    11. Eric A. Hanushek & Jens Ruhose & Ludger Woessmann, 2017. "Knowledge Capital and Aggregate Income Differences: Development Accounting for US States," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 184-224, October.
    12. Eric A. Hanushek, 2008. "Incentives for Efficiency and Equity in the School System," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(s1), pages 5-27, May.
    13. León, Gianmarco & Valdivia, Martín, 2015. "Inequality in school resources and academic achievement: Evidence from Peru," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 71-84.
    14. Marine de Talancé, 2015. "Better Teachers, Better Results? Evidence from Rural Pakistan," Working Papers DT/2015/21, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    15. Haegeland, Torbjørn & Raaum, Oddbjørn & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2005. "Pupil Achievement, School Resources and Family Background," IZA Discussion Papers 1459, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Torbjørn Hægeland & Oddbjørn Raaum & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2004. "Pupil achievement, school resources and family backgr," Discussion Papers 397, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    17. Alan B. Krueger, 2003. "Economic Considerations and Class Size," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 34-63, February.
    18. Hanushek, Eric A., 2006. "Alternative school policies and the benefits of general cognitive skills," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 447-462, August.
    19. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Shapiro, Joseph, 2006. "Evaluating the impact of Mexico's quality schools program : the pitfalls of using nonexperimental data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4036, The World Bank.
    20. Gundlach, Erich & Wößmann, Ludger, . "Bildungsressourcen, Bildungsinstitutionen und Bildungsqualität: Makroökonomische Relevanz und mikroökonomische Evidenz," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    full-time schools; test scores; school reform; time of instruction; school’s inputs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of 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:sus:susewp:7415. 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: University of Sussex Business School Communications Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecsusuk.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.