The federal government's Race to the Top competition has promoted the adoption of test-based performance measures as a component of teacher evaluations throughout many states, but the validity of these measures has been controversial among researchers and widely contested by teachers' unions. A...

The influx of immigrants has shifted the ethnic composition of public schools in many states. Given the perceived negative impact of significant immigrant inflows, we are interested in investigating if these inflows into a school affect the academic performance of native students who remain. To...

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly randomly with respect to family background. Similar to previous studies, we find sizeable...

Während Haupt- und Realschüler vor der bayerischen Schulreform bis zum Ende der sechsten Klasse gemeinsam gelernt haben, werden sie seither bereits nach der vierten Klasse getrennt. Eine aktuelle Studie des ifo Instituts hat die Auswirkungen dieser Reform auf die Schülerkompetenzen anhand von...

Das Abitur hat in Deutschland eine lange Tradition als Reifeprüfung, die die Studierfähigkeit attestieren und damit den Zugang zum Hochschulsystem eröffnen soll. Allerdings werden seit Jahrzehnten beträchtliche qualitative Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Aufgabenstellungen und der...

This paper studies the effect of attending a high-quality secondary school on subsequent educational outcomes. The analysis is based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study in which we observe children when they make their secondary school choice (between ages 10-12) and later when...

Absences in Chicago Public High Schools are 3-7 days per year higher in first period than at other times of the day. This study exploits this empirical regularity and the essentially random variation between students in the ordering of classes over the day to measure how the returns to classroom...

It is well known that individuals' risk attitudes are related to behavioral outcomes such as smoking, portfolio decisions, and also educational attainment, but there is barely any evidence on whether parental risk attitudes affect the educational attainment of dependent children. We add to this...

It is well known that individuals' risk attitudes are related to behavioral outcomes such as smoking, portfolio decisions, and also educational attainment, but there is barely any evidence on whether parental risk attitudes affect the educational attainment of dependent children. We add to this...