Chris Blattman

Search
Close this search box.

Reasons why I can relax and not stress about getting my child into the elite New York school system

Any evidence-based excuse not to be a crazed Manhattan parent I will take gladly.

Publicly funded exam schools educate many of the world’s most talented students. These schools typically contain higher achieving peers, more rigorous instruction, and additional resources compared to regular public schools. This paper uses a sharp discontinuity in the admissions process at three prominent exam schools in New York City to provide the first causal estimate of the impact of attending an exam school in the United States on longer term academic outcomes.

Attending an exam school increases the rigor of high school courses taken and the probability that a student graduates with an advanced high school degree. Surprisingly, however, attending an exam school has little impact on Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, college enrollment, or college graduation — casting doubt on their ultimate long term impact.

A new NBER paper from Will Dobbie and Roland Fryer.

No doubt Bryan Caplan would concur. Separated twins research wins again?

3 Responses

  1. Are Americans aware that the idea of thinking about your child’s school before he or she will turn 5 arouses amazement in some parts of the world (e.g. in Germany)?

  2. I should read the paper but only have time to comment right now… I wonder if those results hold across all socioeconomic classes? I feel like sending a poor student to one of those schools must improve their chances of getting into a good college, compared to a rich student with the contacts and parents to drive them regardless of what school they go to. Or not, interesting results either way.

  3. Chris, also check out the recent NBER paper by Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist, and Pathak. It seems to reach similar conclusions. Here is the highlight from the abstract:

    the question of whether an exam school education adds value relative to a regular public education remains open….Our estimates show little effect of exam school
    offers on most students’ achievement in most grades….the intense competition for exam school seats does not appear to be justified by improved learning for a broad set of students.

    THE ELITE ILLUSION: ACHIEVEMENT EFFECTS AT BOSTON AND NEW YORK EXAM SCHOOLS
    Atila Abdulkadiroglu
    Joshua D. Angrist
    Parag A. Pathak
    http://www.nber.org/papers/w17264

Why We Fight - Book Cover
Subscribe to Blog