American Economic Review: Insights
ISSN 2640-205X (Print) | ISSN 2640-2068 (Online)
Race and the Mismeasure of School Quality
American Economic Review: Insights
vol. 6,
no. 1, March 2024
(pp. 20–37)
Abstract
In large urban districts, schools enrolling more White students tend to have higher performance ratings. We use an instrumental variables strategy leveraging centralized school assignment to explore this relationship. Estimates from Denver and New York City suggest that the correlation between school performance ratings and White enrollment shares reflects selection bias rather than causal school value added. In fact, value added in these two cities is essentially unrelated to White enrollment shares. A simple regression adjustment is shown to yield school ratings uncorrelated with race while predicting value added as well as or better than the corresponding unadjusted measures.Citation
Angrist, Joshua, Peter Hull, Parag A. Pathak, and Christopher R. Walters. 2024. "Race and the Mismeasure of School Quality." American Economic Review: Insights, 6 (1): 20–37. DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20220292Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I24 Education and Inequality
- I28 Education: Government Policy
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination