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The Impact of Decentralized Decision Making on Student Outcomes and Teacher Quality: Evidence from Colombia

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  • Elacqua, Gregory
  • Munevar, Isabela
  • Sanchez, Fabio
  • Santos, Humberto
Abstract
To contribute to the debate about decentralization of education management, in this paper, we take advantage of the arbitrary rule used in Colombia to define the municipalities that can autonomously manage schools, to evaluate through a Regression Discontinuity methodology the effect of municipal’s autonomy on student achievement and teacher characteristics, using as a counterfactual schools located in municipalities that just missed the population criteria, schools that are managed by the departments. Our results suggest that schools in municipalities that became autonomous in terms of their public education administration, have on average, a lower proportion of low-performing students, than similar schools in municipalities that do not manage their schools, especially in 9th grade. Moreover, when analyzing the teachers' characteristics as a channel to explain academic performance, we found that teachers in certified municipalities score on average, 0.5 to 1 standard deviation higher on the mandatory competency test to become a permanent public-school teacher.

Suggested Citation

  • Elacqua, Gregory & Munevar, Isabela & Sanchez, Fabio & Santos, Humberto, 2019. "The Impact of Decentralized Decision Making on Student Outcomes and Teacher Quality: Evidence from Colombia," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 9891, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:9891
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0001822
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    Cited by:

    1. Ryota Nakatani & Qianqian Zhang & Isaura Garcia Valdes, 2022. "Fiscal Decentralization Improves Social Outcomes When Countries Have Good Governance," IMF Working Papers 2022/111, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Alejandro Ome & Gerson Javier Pérez-Valbuena, 2022. "Natural Resource Windfalls: Effects in Non-producing Areas," Documentos de trabajo sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 313, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    3. María Orduz, 2022. "Effect of educational spending on academic performance under different institutional arrangements," Documentos CEDE 20224, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    4. Alcaíno, Manuel & Jaimovich, Analia & Méndez, Carolina & Vásquez, Diana, 2022. "Government fragmentation and educational outcomes: evidence on the creation of municipalities in Chile," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11987, Inter-American Development Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education decentralization; Colombia; educational achievement; teacher quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare

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