Lottery-based instru­men­tal vari­ables esti­mates show that Boston’s char­ter schools sub­stan­tially increase test scores and close racial achieve­ment gaps among their appli­cants. A key pol­icy ques­tion is whether char­ter expan­sion is likely to pro­duce sim­i­lar effects on a larger scale. This paper uses a struc­tural model of school choice and aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment to extrap­o­late from IV …

We eval­u­ate the effects of aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment awards for first and second-year col­lege stu­dents study­ing at a Canadian com­muter col­lege. The award scheme offered lin­ear cash incen­tives for course grades above 70. Awards were paid every term. Program par­tic­i­pants also had access to peer advis­ing by upper­class­men. Program engage­ment appears to have been high but …

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino requests SEII’s assis­tance to ana­lyze school choice options for Boston Public Schools, delay­ing the ini­tial time­line to bring sci­en­tific rigor to the pol­icy dis­cus­sion. SEII researchers Parag Pathak and Peng Shi issue report on new school choice options for Boston Public Schools.