Quantitative Analysis of Education Policy in Australia Andrew

Quantitative Analysis of Education Policy in Australia Andrew Leigh Australian National University Email: andrew. leigh@anu. edu. au Web: http: //econrsss. anu. edu. au/~aleigh/ NYU Abu Dhabi Jan 22, 2009

Educational Institutions Australia is a federation (like the US and Canada), with schooling mostly done by states. n Public school funding is pretty uniform (about A$10, 000 (US$7000) per child. n Private schools get government funding (on average A$7000/US$5000 per student) n Private school funding is more generous if children come from poorer neighborhoods. n Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

Big Policy Questions What student characteristics affect educational performance? n What characteristics of teachers, principals, and funding are important? n Which learning methods are most effective? n How do students affect one another? n How does the quality and quantity of schooling affect earnings? n Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

Rising Impact of Quant Evidence Big rise in the use of large-scale quantitative datasets in Australia. Why? 1. Capacity: Increased computing power, better statistical techniques 2. Policy-relevance: If you think teacher quality matters, you need a lot of data. 3. Comfort: Policymakers are coming to recognise that they can trust academics. The state of Queensland (like TX & NY) has led the way. Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

What Have We Learned? n n n 1 SD increase in teacher performance leads to a 0. 1 SD increase in student performance Teacher experience matters, but only a smidgin Teacher demographics (age, gender) explain very little Teachers with a Masters degree are no more effective at raising test scores than teachers without a Masters degree (ignoring selection) Raising teacher pay increases the test scores of entering teacher education students. Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

What Have We Learned? n n The black-white test score gap widens after students start school Parents will pay more to buy a house in the catchment area of a good public school. Despite rising funding, student achievement has not risen since the 1960 s/70 s. Relative to their age cohort, teachers’ own test scores have fallen since the 1980 s (70 th → 62 nd percentile). The drop among female US teachers was from the 65 th → 46 th percentile. Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

Barriers to Quant Research Test timing: Every two years, in the middle of the year n Bureaucratic risk-aversion: Creates difficulties in matching datasets (eg. low-stakes and highstakes tests), and comparing public/private n Reluctance about randomised trials: A strong aversion to ‘experimenting on our kids’ n Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

What Helps? Ongoing dialogue with bureaucrats is timeconsuming, but makes them feel more comfortable with research goals & methods. n Large fixed costs to using administrative data, so better to focus on one open-minded jurisdiction n Good storytellers help – Joel Klein’s recent visit to Australia had more impact on pushing forward quantitative research than a dozen papers. Bring in the New Yorkers! n Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder