Essays on economics of education
Date
2023
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Abstract
Chapter one analyzes the opt-out movement in Colorado and New York. In 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and reinforced the focus on educational equity through the mechanism of standardized tests. The ESSA maintained a 95% participation requirement for grades 3-8 English and Language Arts (ELA) and Math state assessments. I utilize state education data from Colorado and New York to identify how standardized test protests, which are now referred to as the opt-out movement, impact the participation rates in both states. I employ fixed effects regressions to assess the participation rates before and after the protests by interacting the opt-out movement with racial composition, region, and free and reduced lunch status and find that White students are primary participants in the movement in both states. I provide visual estimates of the fixed effect regressions to demonstrate the decline in participation rates with time varying controls. The decline in participation rates is persistent through 2018 in New York but trends back to pre opt-out levels in Colorado. I find a positive relationship between participation rates and performance in both states but this relationship is dampened after the opt-out protests. Finally, I calculate a counterfactual for school level performance to assess the relationship if schools maintained their pre opt-out levels. Results indicate that if policy makers use raw data to assess achievement gaps they could underestimate achievement gaps. The second chapter utilizes regional codes from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), this study compiles district and school level data to provide additional insight on the relationship between learning modes and performance. Jack et al. (30) estimated the impact of different instruction modes during the 2020-21 academic year on standardized test performance in 11 states and find that districts with full in-person learning experienced significantly smaller declines in pass rates. Colorado experienced a smaller performance decline relative to other states in the sample and appeared to be an outlier in their study. I use District-level data from their study to show a full transition to in-person learning would have reduced learning loss by 3-6 percentage points in Colorado. School-level analysis in Colorado indicates that the reduction in learning loss attributed to full in-person instruction is small and largely statistically insignificant apart from a few grades in Math. Analysis by racial subgroup indicates that increasing participation rates for minority students would positively impact performance. Finally, the third chapter uses administrative data from Colorado State University's Institutional Research, Planning, and Effectiveness (IRPE) and Student Athlete Support Services to identify the relationship between support services and student athletes' semester GPA and credit earned ratio. I analyze the relationship for four types of support services at the extensive (meetings versus no meetings) and intensive margins (number of meetings). I find that the relationship between support services and GPA varies based on the nature of the support service and the time of reception. In semesters that student athletes receive intensive support services, like tutoring, they earn lower GPAs. Student athletes who receive less intensive support services, like mentoring, earn higher semester GPAs. I find that support services and student athletes credit earned ratio exhibit no statistically significant relationship across all specifications. Negative selection is present in the sample because student athletes who are academically unprepared are more likely to receive support services. More intensive support services like tutoring highlight this selection in the result. I attempt to isolate the effect of support services by using the first support service session provided by SASS. I differentiate between early intervention and general support services and find that the benefit to student athletes from support services comes from receiving services in the first four weeks of the semester.
Description
Rights Access
Subject
performance
support service
standardized testing
participation