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Student assessment and grade retention: evidence from a natural experiment

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  • Kimura, Marlies
  • Ochsen, Carsten

Abstract

In Germany and many other countries, students are tracked into various secondary school types. This paper studies whether parents or teachers assess students potential educational performance more adequately. Educational attainment is measured by grade retention rates. We take advantage of a reform in the German state of North Rhine- Westphalia (NRW) in 2006. The reform replaced parents choice about their children s secondary school type by a binding teacher recommendation. Our data comprises class-level information on all public secondary schools in the state. We find that binding teacher recommendations cause less grade retentions. The effect is mainly driven by students from better situated districts. This finding may capture that with free parental choice, overambitious parents tend to select too demanding tracks for their children.

Suggested Citation

  • Kimura, Marlies & Ochsen, Carsten, 2014. "Student assessment and grade retention: evidence from a natural experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100546, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100546
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    1. Lex Borghans & Ron Diris & Wendy Smits & Jannes de Vries, 2019. "The long-run effects of secondary school track assignment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-29, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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