Using a rich dataset that merges student-level school records with birth records, and leveraging three alternative identification strategies, we explore how increase in access to charter schools in twelve districts in Florida affects students remaining in traditional public schools (TPS). We consistently find that competition stemming from the opening of new charter schools improves reading—but not math—performance and it also decreases absenteeism of students who remain in the TPS. Results are modest in magnitude.
Authors
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- We thank Guido Schwerdt as well as conference and seminar participants at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Education Finance and Policy, the CesIfo Economics of Education Meeting, the 6th IZA Workshop on the Economics of Education, the American Educational Research Association, and the University of California at Davis. We are grateful to the anonymous Florida school districts and Florida Department of Health for access to the de-identified data used in this analysis. Figlio, Hart, and Karbownik acknowledge support from Smith Richardson Foundation. The conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the positions of the Florida state or local agencies or those of our funders. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3386/w32120
- Published in
- United States of America
