Working Paper: NBER ID: w17990
Authors: Thomas Dee
Abstract: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model. Schools that met the "lowest-achieving" and "lack of progress" thresholds within their state had prioritized eligibility for these SIG-funded interventions. Using data from California, this study leverages these two discontinuous eligibility rules to identify the effects of SIG-funded whole-school reforms. The results based on these "fuzzy" regression-discontinuity designs indicate that there were significant improvements in the test-based performance of schools on the "lowest-achieving" margin but not among schools on the "lack of progress" margin. Complementary panel-based estimates suggest that these improvements were largely concentrated among schools adopting the federal "turnaround" model, which compels more dramatic staff turnover.
Keywords: School Improvement Grants; Whole-School Reforms; Education Policy
JEL Codes: H52; I2
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| SIG funding (F53) | improvement in test-based performance (D29) |
| lowest-achieving threshold (C24) | SIG funding (F53) |
| lack of progress threshold (D52) | SIG funding (F53) |
| SIG funding (F53) | Academic Performance Index (API) scores (I21) |
| lack of progress threshold (D52) | no significant performance improvements (D29) |