TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jacob,Brian A.
AU  - Lefgren,Lars
TI  - Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8918
PY  - 2002
Y2  - May 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8918
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8918.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Brian Jacob
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan
735 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tel: 734-615-6994
Fax: NA
E-Mail: bajacob@umich.edu

Lars Lefgren
Department of Economics
Brigham Young University
130 Faculty Office Bulding
Provo, UT 84602-2363
Tel: (801) 422-5169
E-Mail: l-lefgren@byu.edu
AB  - As standards and accountability have become an increasingly prominent feature of the educational landscape, educators have relied more on remedial programs such as summer school and grade retention to help low-achieving students meet minimum academic standards.  Yet the evidence on the effectiveness of such programs is mixed, and prior research suffers from selection bias. However, recent school reform efforts in Chicago provide an opportunity to examine the causal impact of these remedial education programs.  In 1996, the Chicago Public Schools instituted an accountability policy that tied summer school and promotional decisions to performance on standardized tests, which resulted in a highly non-linear relationship between current achievement and the probability of attending summer school or being retained.  Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the net effect of these programs was to substantially increase academic achievement among third graders, but not sixth graders.  In addition, contrary to conventional wisdom and prior research, we find that retention increases achievement for third grade students and has little effect on math achievement for sixth grade students.
ER  -