The effects of the New Orleans post-Katrina school reforms on student academic outcomes

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Abstract
  • The school reforms put in place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
    represent the most intensive test-based and market-based school accountability system
    ever created in the United States. Collective bargaining was ended, yielding flexible
    human capital management. Traditional attendance zones were eliminated, expanding
    choice for families. And almost all public schools were taken over by the state, which
    turned over management to outside non-profit charter management organizations
    working under performance contracts. Ten years later, this study provides the first
    examination of the effects of this package of reforms on student achievement.
    Identification is based on multiple difference-in-difference (DD) strategies, using
    outcomes before and after the hurricane and reforms in New Orleans and a matched
    comparison group that experienced hurricane damage but not the school reforms. The
    estimation procedures address potential threats to identification, including changes in the
    population, distortions in test scores from high-stakes accountability, influence of the
    interim schools attended by evacuated students, and the trauma and disruption from the
    hurricane itself. With the possible exception of test score distortions, these factors seem
    to have a small influence and, collectively, they appear to cancel each other out. The
    results suggest that, over time, as the reforms yielded a new system of schools, they had
    large positive cumulative effects on achievement of 0.2-0.4 standard deviations.
TitleThe effects of the New Orleans post-Katrina school reforms on student academic outcomes
CreatorLarsen, Matthew F.
Harris, D. N.
PublisherTechnical Report, Education Research Alliance for New Orleans
Academic DepartmentEconomics
DivisionSocial Sciences
OrganizationLafayette College
Date IssuedFebruary 10, 2016
Date Available2016-03-11T19:25:46Z
TypeReport
LanguageEnglish
Bibliographic CitationHarris, D. N. and M. F. Larsen (2016 Feb 10) "The effects of the New Orleans post-Katrina school reforms on student academic outcomes." Technical Report. Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.
Standard IdentifierHandle 10385/2096
Permalinkhttp://hdl.handle.net/10385/2096
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