ERIC Number: ED574541
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 45
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Performance Information and Retrospective Voting: Evidence from a School Accountability Regime. Program on Education Policy and Governance Working Paper Series. PEPG 15-03
Barrows, Samuel
Program on Education Policy and Governance
Governments are increasingly publishing information about the performance of the services they provide, in part to help citizens hold their elected representatives accountable for government service outcomes. Yet there is little evidence concerning the influence of information about government service performance on voter behavior. This paper examines the degree to which school performance information affects incumbent support in school board elections. A regression discontinuity analysis indicates that voters reward incumbents when local schools achieve the highest available measure of school performance. Voters do not respond to information differentiating between schools in the middle of the performance distribution, however, or to information from a source that lacks credibility. The following are appended: (1) Regression Discontinuity Specification; (2) Cross-Validation Procedure to Select Bandwidths; (3) Tables and Figures. [This research has been supported by a Harvard University grant from the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy.]
Descriptors: Voting, Educational Policy, Accountability, Public Officials, Government Role, School Effectiveness, Boards of Education, Elections, Regression (Statistics), Tables (Data), Credibility, Public Schools, Political Candidates, Correlation, Academic Achievement, Elementary Secondary Education, Achievement Tests, Standardized Tests, State Standards
Program on Education Policy and Governance. Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Taubman 304, Cambridge, MA 02138. Tel: 617-495-7976; Fax: 617-496-4428; e-mail: pepg@fas.harvard.edu; Web site: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Harvard University, Program on Education Policy and Governance
Identifiers - Location: Florida
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A