Grade retention and early dropout are two of the biggest challenges facing education systems in middle-income countries today, representing waste in school resources. We investigate whether reducing parent-school information gaps can improve outcomes that are early-warning signals for grade retention and dropout. We conducted an experiment in low-income schools in Chile to test the effects and behavioral changes triggered by a program that sends attendance, grade, and classroom behavior information to parents via weekly and monthly text messages. Our 18-month intervention raised average math GPA by 0.09 of a standard deviation and increased the share of students satisfying attendance requirements for grade promotion by 4.5 percentage points. Treatment effects were larger for students at higher risk of later grade retention and dropout. We find some evidence of positive classroom spillovers. Leveraging existing school inputs to implement a light-touch, cost-effective information intervention can improve education outcomes in lower-income settings.
Authors
Samuel Berlinski, Matias Busso, Taryn Dinkelman, Claudia Martínez A.
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- Julian Martinez-Correa provided excellent research assistance and multiple comments that improved the manuscript. Anna Koh Lee, Santiago Perez Vincent, Dario Romero, and Dario Salcedo provided excellent research assistance in early stages of the paper. We thank Bernardita Muñoz, Daniela Alvarado and Paula Espinoza for superb support in fieldwork. Thomas Dishion and Anne Mauricio gave fabulous guidance on how to communicate with parents and the Family Check-Up approach. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding through J-PAL's Post-Primary Education Initiative, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Spencer Foundation, and a Chilean FONIDE grant (No. 711272). The study is registered as AEARCTR-0001059. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. 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/w28581
- Published in
- United States of America
