Education and migraine

There are lots of interesting papers in recent editions of the Journal of Human Resources but this one caught my eye:

Rees, D. I., and J. J. Sabia. 2011. “The Effect of Migraine Headache on Educational Attainment.” Journal of Human Resources 46(2): 317–332.
Despite the fact that migraine headaches are common and debilitating, little is known about their effect on educational attainment. Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the relationship between migraine headache and three outcomes: high school grade point average, the probability of graduating high school, and the probability of attending college. Our results provide evidence that migraine headache negatively impacts human capital accumulation. The relationship between migraine headache and educational attainment is explained, in part, through its effect on school absences and the respondent’s self-reported ability to pay attention in class and complete homework

Graduates: the measure of power

Once upon a time it was a country's battleships or battalions that determined its power. Now, apparently it's a country's graduates.

School tracking, social segregation and educational opportunity: evidence from Belgium

J. HINDRIKS, M. VERSCHELDE, G. RAYP, K. SCHOORS
Educational tracking is a very controversial issue in education. The tracking debate is about the virtues of uniformity and vertical differentiation in the curriculum and teaching. The pro- tracking group claims that curriculum and teaching better aimed at children's varied interest and skills will foster learning efficacy. The anti-tracking group claims that tracking systems are ineffcient and unfair because they hinder learning and distribute learning inequitably. In this paper we provide a detailed within-country analysis of a specific educational system with a long history of early educational tracking between schools, namely the Flemish secondary school system in Belgium. .... Combining evidence from the PISA 2006 data set at the student and school level with recent statistical methods, we show first the dramatic impact of tracking on social segregation; and then, the impact of social segregation on equality of educational opportunity (adequately measured). It is shown that tracking, via social segregation, has a major effect on inequality of opportunity...

The benefits of school autonomy

While it is generally believed that school quality matters, finding what it is that makes a school good or bad has proved very difficult. The most commonly studied variable, class size, has produced very inconclusive results. But clearly there is a lot more to education than class size. This paper shows some interesting results on the benefits of greater school autonomy.

School autonomy and educational performance: within-country evidence
Jean Hindriks, Maijn Verschelde, Glenn Rayp and Koen Schoors
This paper shows the value of school autonomy for educational performance. To fully capture the informational advantage of local actors, we define school autonomy as the operational empowerment of the principals and teachers. The Flemish secondary school system in Belgium is analyzed as it is has a long history of educational school autonomy, but considerable variation between schools in school staff empowerment. Combining detailed school level and pupil level data from the PISA 2006 study with a semiparametric hierarchical model, we find strong indications that operational school autonomy is associated with high educational performance if appropriate accountability systems are active. Sensitivity tests show that both low and high-performers benefit from this kind of school autonomy.

How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries?

L Woessman, E Hanushek
IZA dp 5401
Existing growth research provides little explanation for the very large differences in long-run growth performance across OECD countries. We show that cognitive skills can account for growth differences within the OECD, whereas a range of economic institutions and quantitative measures of tertiary education cannot. Under the growth model estimates and plausible projection parameters, school improvements falling within currently observed performance levels yield very large gains. The present value of OECD aggregate gains through 2090 could be as much as $275 trillion, or 13.8 percent of the discounted value of future GDP. Extensive sensitivity analyses indicate that, while differences between model frameworks and alternative parameter choices make a difference, the economic impact of improved educational outcomes remains enormous. Interestingly, the quantitative difference
between an endogenous and neoclassical model framework – with improved skills affecting the long-run growth rate versus just the steady-state income level – matters less than academic discussions suggest. We close by discussing evidence on which education policy reforms may be able to bring about the simulated improvements in educational outcomes.

New evidence on class size effects

Class size effects: evidence using a new estimation technique

Kevin Denny, Veruska Oppedisano
This paper estimates the marginal effect of class size on educational attainment of high school students. We control for the potential endogeneity of class size in two ways using a conventional instrumental variable approach, based on changes in cohort size, and an alternative method where identification is based on restriction on higher moments. The data is drawn from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) collected in 2003 for the United States and the United Kingdom. Using either method or the two in conjunction leads to the conclusion that increases in class size lead to improvements in student’s mathematics scores. Only the results for the United Kingdom are statistically significant.

Education cuts, the National Plan and class sizes

Because of the dire fiscal situation, it seems some cut-backs to educational spending would be inevitable. The National Plan is pretty vague on education (amongst other things). Discussing the plan in the Irish Times Colm McCarthy remarked “The plan reflects successful lobbying to exempt the education budget from severe cuts. This is being justified in terms of the importance of holding with existing targets for pupil-teacher ratios, notwithstanding the dearth of evidence that reducing these ratios weakens educational outcomes in any measurable way.”

Is this really true? Well no. Few parameters in the economics of education have been so well studied as the effect of class size on educational outcomes. There are dozens and dozens of studies. So what’s the answer then? Well this is where it gets complicated. Firstly, we have no good evidence for Ireland that I am aware of. If this is what Colm McCarthy means then he is correct but then we don’t have any evidence on lots of things for Ireland and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What does the international evidence say then? The first complication is that one should not expect one answer. Primary schools are different from secondary schools, a class of 40 is different from one of 20 and Korea is not Bangladesh so variation in measured effects is to be expected. A further problem, which non academics may not care about but is important, is that methods for estimating these effects vary widely and this partly explains some of the variation.

The most well studied country is the US. The STAR experiment in Tennessee is generally considered a well designed study and points to significant benefits from smaller classes but in that case the reductions were big (around 9 pupils on average). A “natural experiment” in Connecticut came up with a “precisely estimated zero” effect (Hoxby). The famous Maimonides Rule study for Israel (Angrist & Lavy) found positive effects of smaller classes but similar work for the Netherlands found the opposite (papers by Levin, Dobbelstein et al). A cross country study using TIMSS data (Woessman & West) found a mixed bag of results. Some reviews of the evidence point to negligible effects over all (see the work by Eric Hanushek) while other meta-analyses point to clear benefits from reducing classes. So rather than a dearth of evidence there is too much of it or at least there is not enough consensus and you can pick a study to suit your prejudice (or “prior” to give it its scientific name).

What’s striking about this literature is its near obsession with one variable, class size. Other measures of quality are almost entirely ignored. Ask yourself or someone else was their school good and they will quickly you reasons why it was or wasn’t. Class size tends not to be prominent a reason in my experience. This isn’t scientific but it does remind us that lots of things, some hard to measure, go into making a good school. One factor that everyone mentions is their teachers. Curiously, measuring the quality of teachers and the effect it has on outcomes does not feature much in the policy debates.

In the absence of clear evidence it probably makes sense that any damage from increased class effects is minimized by favouring more socially disadvantaged schools and those schools with the biggest class sizes.

Shocking news about progression to university in Ireland

The news from this years' Irish Times "feeder lists" is... well not news at all since it tells a depressingly familiar tale of unequal access to university.
Going to university and higher education generally is not, of course the be-all and end-all of secondary education but the government does not allow any other comparative data on educational attainment to be published at the school level, lest people be allowed to make informed decisions.

Brian Hayes on Irish Education Policy

Today on his blog, Ferdinand von-Prondzynski mentions that Fine Gael (FG) has just published a policy document entitled 'Reinventing government: protecting services and getting the economy back on track'. Ferdinand notes some references in the document to universities and higher education, but suggests that these references are somewhat in passing, as primary and secondary education get far more attention in the document.

Brian Hayes, former FG spokesperson on Education and Science (2007-10) and current FG deputy spokesperson on Finance, gave attention to salient issues in higher education in his article in last Tuesday's Education section in the Irish Times: 'No more Republic of average'. Besides higher education, the article also addresses primary and second-level education, with the emphasis firmly placed on ideas to reform the overall education system for the better.

Ten points of action are outlined in the article under the following headings: (i) Change the points system and abolish the CAO; (ii) Publish school reports; (iii) Introduce a graduate tax; (iv) Abolish compulsory Irish; (v) Boost teacher quality; (vi) Invest in school leadership; (vii) Schools know best – give them real power; (viii) Let the money follow the student; (ix) Improve the teaching – and learning – of maths; (x) Give parents a greater role on school boards. While I do not agree with all of the detail in some of these policy-suggestions, there is much that will seem intuitive to economists in Hayes' article. Some thoughts are as follows.

The Points-System and the CAO. I agree with Hayes that rote learning does not prepare young people for the challenges they face in today’s world. However, I do not think it is necessary to abolish the CAO. Rather than let universities decide their own entrance system, why not change the CAO system to make it fairer? The system could include more continuous assessment (CA). However, this CA should be marked anonymously, just as the exams are. This would serve to take away the pressure of the Big Day, steer students away from rote-learning, and would still be a fair and transparent assessment method. I also think that having four (instead of three) compulsory subject-choices would be fairer, in that it would be a more level playing-field. I discussed all of this before here.

Publish school reports. I agree that this would be a step in the right direction. Kevin D has commented before on this in detail and mentioned that "when league tables are discussed in an education context it usually refers to comparisons of schools based on exam results... but such tables (real ones) would at least refer to outputs and could, with a little work, be made into a Value Added measure." Why keep parents in the dark about one of the most important decisions they will ever make?

Introduce a graduate tax. I agree that there is a need for a student contribution to resolve the higher education funding crisis in Ireland; and concerns about the fairness of 'free fees' have been discussed before on this blog. Certainly, I think it is undesirable to see the current increase that is planned for the student "registration fee". However, I do not think that a graduate tax is the answer. I would instead recommend an income contingent student loan scheme: the consensus solution offered by economists - which Kevin D has discussed before on the blog.

A good reference in this area is an article in the Guardian from last year, in which Nicholas Barr, LSE economist, argues coherently as to why students are better off under an income contingent loan scheme. In such as scheme, a graduate with low earnings makes low or no repayments, and anything not repaid after 25 years is forgiven. "Thus loans - deliberately and rightly - have inbuilt insurance against inability to repay, protecting graduates who do not do well financially out of their degree." Also, a student loan scheme is more transparent - graduates know what they are being asked to repay. It is ironic that the U.K.'s National Union of Students argue in favour of a graduate tax; they stand to avail of a fairer system now that U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable has scrapped his plans for a graduate tax.

There are some immediate concerns in the Irish case about whether student loans would provide the upfront-finance needed to resolve the higher education funding crisis. Without a securitisation-strategy (to securitise the value of future loan re-payments), the taxpayer would still have to provide funds upfront so that universities could finance current expenditure. Furthermore, if the loan scheme is interest-free (as it is in the UK) then there is a subsidy (in relation to the time value of money) which is paid for by taxpayers. Securitisation seems to me to be the optimal solution; though of course, someone would have to buy the securities. The only alternative (in current conditions) would seem to be the increase in the "registration fee"; though Irish students should also be aware that they may apply for UK college loans from 2012. The only other possibility that I can imagine is to invite the UK Student Loans Company to set up shop in Ireland.

Finally, in relation to income contingent student loans, it should also be mentioned that the Australian student loan scheme has been evaluated in a very positive light in relation to its impact on equality of access; Bruce Chapman and Chris Ryan report the following: "The social composition of participants was different in 1999 from that of 1988: the distribution was more equal. That outcome reflected strong relative growth in participation in the middle of the wealth distribution. ...We find no evidence that participation fell among 'marginal decision makers'—those who, while at school, did not intend to study at university. We conclude that HECS did not discourage university participation in general or among individuals from low wealth groups."

Abolish compulsory Irish. I agree that it should be optional to study Irish for the Leaving Cert. While the Irish language is important for heritage (and knock-on effects on tourism), do we not get enough of that benefit by schooling students in the Irish language up until Junior Cert.? Those who want to study Irish at third-level (and I can see the need for this) could enter third-level courses that pick up where Junior Cert. Irish left off. I made this suggestion before here.

Boost teacher quality. While I agree that teacher evaluation and indeed teacher incentives, should be considered in more detail, there are pitfalls to be avoided in this area. There is research by Pedro Martins from the University of London (based on robust quantitative methods) which shows that an increased focus on individual teacher performance caused a significant decline in student achievement. It is possible that the mechanism behind this relationship is teacher-motivation.

Schools know best – give them real power. More school-level autonomy could reduce the risk that capital works related to school building projects do not go ahead. One model of enhanced autonomy (and accountability) is the charter school in the United States.

Let the money follow the student. Hayes does not use the term "school voucher" but that seems to be what he is referring to by "pupil premium". There is evidence from robust quantitative research in Colombia that a school-vouchers program "increased test scores by two-tenths of a standard deviation in the distribution of potential test scores. Boys, who have lower scores than girls in this population, show larger test score gains, especially in math."

Improve the teaching – and learning – of maths. I agree that "while the debate on bonus points is important, the teaching of the subject is the real issue". My reservations about the bonus points scheme for maths are documented here.

Give parents a greater role on school boards. Some charter schools are founded by teachers, parents, or activists who feel restricted by traditional public schools. A string of high quality studies have found that students benefit academically from attending a charter school rather than a traditional public school (in the United States).