Working Paper: NBER ID: w23550
Authors: Richard J. Murnane; Marcus R. Waldman; John B. Willett; Maria Soledad Bos; Emiliana Vegas
Abstract: In an effort to boost student achievement and reduce income-based gaps, the Chilean government passed the Preferential School Subsidy Law (SEP) in 2008, which altered the nation’s 27-year-old universal school-voucher system dramatically. Implementation of SEP increased the value of the school voucher by 50 percent for “Priority students”, primarily those whose family incomes fell within the bottom 40 percent of the national distribution. To be eligible to accept the higher-valued vouchers from these students, schools were required to waive fees for Priority students and to participate in an accountability system. \nUsing national data on the mathematics achievement of 1,631,841 Chilean 4th-grade students who attended one of 8,588 schools during the year 2005 through 2012, we address two research questions (RQs):\n1.\tDid student test scores increase and income-based score gaps become smaller during the five years after the passage of SEP?\n2.\tDid SEP contribute to increases in student test scores and, if so, through what mechanisms? \n\nWe addressed these RQs by fitting a sequence of multi-level interrupted time-series regression models, supplemented by other descriptive analyses. We found that:\n1.\tOn average, student test scores increased markedly and income-based gaps in those scores declined by one-third in the five years after the passage of SEP.\n2.\tThe combination of increased support of schools and accountability was the critical mechanism through which the implementation of SEP increased student scores, especially in schools serving high concentrations of low-income students. Migration of low-income students from public schools to private voucher schools played a small role. \n\nWe interpret these findings as more supportive of improved student performance than other recent research on the Chilean policy reform.
Keywords: educational voucher reform; Chile; student achievement; income-based gaps
JEL Codes: I22; I24; I25
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| SEP legislation (K20) | student test scores (I21) |
| increased financial support and accountability (I22) | student test scores (I21) |
| SEP legislation (K20) | reduction in income-based gaps in test scores (I24) |
| migration of low-income students from public to private voucher schools (I22) | student test scores (I21) |