TY  - JOUR
AU  - Dobbie,Will
AU  - Fryer,Roland G., Jr.
TI  - Exam High Schools and Academic Achievement: Evidence from New York City
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17286
PY  - 2011
Y2  - August 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17286
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17286.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Will Dobbie
Education Innovation Laboratory
Harvard University
44 Brattle Street, 5th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
E-Mail: dobbie@fas.harvard.edu

Roland G. Fryer, Jr
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center 208
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/495-9592
Fax: 617/495-8570
E-Mail: rfryer@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -