Quantitative Analysis of Education Policy in Australia Andrew Leigh Australian National University Email: andrew.leigha

1. 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

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

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

4. Rising Impact of Quant Evidence Big rise in the use of large-scale quantitative datasets in Australia. Why? Capacity: Increased computing power, better statistical techniques Policy-relevance: If you think teacher quality matters, you need a lot of data. 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

5. What Have We Learned? 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

6. What Have We Learned? 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 1960s/70s. Relative to their age cohort, teachers� own test scores have fallen since the 1980s (70th ? 62nd percentile). The drop among female US teachers was from the 65th ? 46th percentile. Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder

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

8. What Helps? Ongoing dialogue with bureaucrats is time-consuming, but makes them feel more comfortable with research goals & methods. Large fixed costs to using administrative data, so better to focus on one open-minded jurisdiction 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! Andrew Leigh: Quantitative Analysis of Educational Policy Downunder