Working Paper: NBER ID: w31328
Authors: Michael Gilraine; Uros Petronijevic; John D. Singleton
Abstract: This paper develops and estimates an empirical framework that evaluates the impact of charter school choice on education quality in the aggregate. We estimate the model using student-level data from North Carolina. We find that North Carolina’s lifting of its statewide charter school cap raised the average public school's value-added by around 0.01 standard deviations (on the student test score distribution). We calculate the total human capital returns of the expansion at above $100,000 per charter school enrollee. We further show that competition drives the aggregate gains; test score impacts on students induced into charter schools by the policy are negative.
Keywords: charter schools; school choice; education quality; competition
JEL Codes: H75; I21; I28
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Competition among schools (I21) | Aggregate gains in public school quality (I24) |
| Students induced into charter schools by the policy (I21) | Negative test score impacts (C52) |
| Charter school expansion (I28) | Total human capital returns of over $100,000 per charter school enrollee (I26) |
| Public schools near new charter schools (I28) | Increase in quality (L15) |
| Focus on quality in screening charter school entrants (I21) | Different educational outcomes (I21) |
| Lifting the charter school cap in North Carolina (I28) | Average public school's value-added (I21) |