The Effect of Community Traumatic Events on Student Achievement: Evidence from the Beltway Sniper Attacks

Seth Gershenson and Erdal Tekin

No 8958, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Community traumatic events such as mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural or man-made disasters have the potential to disrupt student learning in numerous ways. For example, these events can reduce instructional time by causing teacher and student absences, school closures, and disturbances to usual classroom routines. Similarly, they might also disrupt home environments. This paper uses a quasi-experimental research design to identify the effects of the 2002 "Beltway Sniper" attacks on student achievement in Virginia's public schools. In order to identify the causal impact of these events, the empirical analysis uses a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits geographic variation in schools' proximity to the attacks. The main results indicate that the attacks significantly reduced school-level proficiency rates in schools within five miles of an attack. Evidence of a causal effect is most robust for third grade reading and third and fifth grade math proficiency, suggesting that the shootings caused a decline in school proficiency rates of about five to nine percentage points. Particularly concerning from an equity standpoint, these effects appear to be entirely driven by achievement declines in schools that serve higher proportions of racial minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Finally, results from supplementary analyses suggest that these deleterious effects faded out in subsequent years.

Keywords: achievement; terrorism; trauma; sniper; school; student; crime; shooting; guns; homicides (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I21 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-law and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Education Finance and Policy, 2018, 13(4), 513-544.

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Effect of Community Traumatic Events on Student Achievement: Evidence from the Beltway Sniper Attacks (2018)
Working Paper: The Effect of Community Traumatic Events on Student Achievement: Evidence from the Beltway Sniper Attacks (2015)
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