Evaluating the Gifted Program of an Urban School District using a Modified Regression Discontinuity Design

Billie Davis, John Engberg, Dennis Epple, Holger Sieg and Ron Zimmer ()

No 16414, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of a gifted program on retention in an urban school district using a regression discontinuity design. Gifted programs often employ IQ thresholds for admission, with those above the threshold being admitted. One common problem with the RD design arises if the forcing variable (the IQ score) is manipulated, thus invalidating the standard research design. We proposed a modified RD estimator that deals with manipulation in the forcing variable. Once we properly correct for manipulation of test scores around the cut-off points, we find evidence that the gifted program offered by the district has a positive effect on retention of higher income students.

JEL-codes: I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
Note: CH ED PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16414.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16414

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16414

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().