 School district consolidation in North Carolina: Impacts on school composition and finance, crime outcomes, and educational attainmentMark J. Chin Economics of Education Review, 2023, vol. 95, issue C Abstract: In this paper I analyze longitudinal data from North Carolina to study K-12 school district consolidations, or the merging of multiple districts into a single administrative unit. I use difference-in-differences and event study models to identify effects on theoretically related school- and district-level mechanisms as well as long-term youth outcomes. In contexts where districts consolidate, per-pupil expenditures on instruction and district support services decrease, and schools become more racially integrated. However, youth exposed to mergers are no more likely to be convicted of a crime in early adulthood than those unexposed. These null effects hold when looking at conviction rates by race and by type of crime and when analyzing another key outcome, educational attainment. My results thus provide causal evidence confirming prior research suggesting that consolidation may: 1) reduce the operational costs of schools without negatively affecting students, and 2) support efforts to address persistent racial isolation between schools. Keywords: Economies of scale; Educational finance; Expenditures; School district consolidation; School segregation; Long-term impacts (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:95:y:2023:i:c:s0272775723000791 DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102432 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.