KWEN VSS Nov. 13 (Wed) 8PM ET Christopher Walters (UC Berkeley)

Time: Wednesday, Nov. 13, 8:00 PM Eastern (10:00 AM Thursday in Korea)

Speaker: Professor Christopher Walters (UC Berkeley)

Discussant: Professor Minseon Park (University of Michigan)

Zoom Link: https://cau.zoom.us/j/84012970327?pwd=pb2NbKObChqtapU9Fgvlg5bIbxJdPy.1

Zoom Meeting ID: 840 1297 0327

Passcode: kaea

Title: Who gets what may not matter: understanding school match effects (joint with Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Parag Pathak)

Abstract: We use data from New York City high schools to contrast the potential effects of market-clearing policies that change the assignment of students to schools and resource-augmentation policies that change the supply of schools. Estimates of school value-added models with heterogeneous effects reveal substantial vertical variation in schools’ average treatment effects on achievement, and more limited horizontal variation in match effects of particular schools for student subgroups. Moreover, student enrollment patterns are unrelated to match effects in the status quo. As a result, market-clearing policies that seek to improve achievement by re-sorting students require dramatic changes in enrollment patterns and generate modest effects relative to realistic resource-augmentation policies that close the least effective schools. An analysis of closure decisions in New York City suggests policymakers are able to successfully target ineffective schools.