Do small schools improve performance in large, urban districts? Causal evidence from New York City

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Urban Economics
Year: 2013
Volume: 77
Issue: C
Pages: 27-40

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We evaluate the effectiveness of small high school reform in the country’s largest school district, New York City. Using a rich administrative dataset for multiple cohorts of students and distance between student residence and school to instrument for endogenous school selection, we find substantial heterogeneity in school effects: newly created small schools have positive effects on graduation and some other education outcomes while older small schools do not. Importantly, we show that ignoring this source of treatment effect heterogeneity by assuming a common small school effect yields a misleading zero effect of small school attendance.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:juecon:v:77:y:2013:i:c:p:27-40
Journal Field
Urban
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29