1994, the Israeli State Lottery sponsored the installation of computers in many elementary and middle schools. This program …

characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains … characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs for Boston and New York City's heavily over-subscribed exam schools …. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the …

rankings for some schools, combined with lottery tie-breaking at other schools. We develop methods that identify causal effects … assessments, which give schools letter grades as a summary measure of quality. Our estimates reveal that although Grade A schools … boost achievement, these gains emerge only for students who attend lottery schools. Attendance at a coveted Grade A screened …