Accountability incentives and academic achievement: Distributional impacts of accountability when standards are set low

J.T. Richardson

Economics of Education Review, 2015, vol. 44, issue C, 1-16

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of a compositional shift in a school’s testing population brought about by the elimination of special education testing exemptions. The policy change forced schools to add varying levels of generally low-achieving students to their testing pools, altering accountability incentives. I provide evidence that the elimination of exemptions caused significant test score increases for initially low-achieving students and narrowed the black-white test gap. I show that the measured effects were not caused by changes in classroom composition. Rather, benefits flowed to low-achieving students because Texas’ accountability standard was low relative to the skills of its students.

Keywords: Educational economics; Resource allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:44:y:2015:i:c:p:1-16

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.10.006

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