In 2015, Michigan increased its Career and Technical Education (CTE) funding and changed its funding formula to reimburse programs-based student progression through program curricula. Although this change nearly doubled program completion rates, student enrollment and persistence were unaffected; instead, administrators accelerated student progress by reorganizing course curricula around notches in the new funding formula. As a result of response heterogeneity, 30% of the funding increase is transferred away from high-poverty districts to more affluent ones, underscoring how supply-side responses to loopholes shape the incidence of public services.
Authors
Thomas Goldring, Brian Jacob, Daniel Kreisman, Michael Ricks
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- This research result used data structured and maintained by the MERI-Michigan Education Data Center (MEDC). MEDC data is modified for analysis purposes using rules governed by MEDC and are not identical to those data collected and maintained by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) and/or Michigan’s Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI). Results, information and opinions solely represent the analysis, information and opinions of the author and are not endorsed by, or reflect the views or positions of, grantors, MDE and CEPI or any employee thereof. We are grateful to our MDE partners for their feedback—particularly Jill Kroll, Brian Pyles, and the staff in the Office of CTE—and to Andrew Simon, Ellen Stuart, and Brenden Timpe for thoughtful comments. We acknowledge support from IES grant number R305A200046, and the Smith-Richardson foundation including grants SRF #2020-2377 and SRF #2022-2932. 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/w32390
- Published in
- United States of America
