Local Violence, Academic Performance, and School Accountability

摘要

Inspired by the No Child Left Behind legislation, school accountability systems seek to promote school quality improvements and close achievement gaps through increased scrutiny of schools and teachers. Standardized test scores and value-added measures largely determine "grades" assigned to institutions and teachers. Poor evaluations may have severe implications: teachers assigned bad grades may face pay decreases, discipline, and possibly, firing; in some cases, entire schools may be closed or replaced by a charter. Importantly, evaluation depends on within-school factors. However, a growing literature demonstrates that random shocks external to the classroom or school environment-for example, spikes in air pollution on testing days-may affect measured test performance (Ebenstein, Lavy, and Roth 2016). As such evaluation systems become increasingly attractive to districts, a more comprehensive understanding is needed of how external stimuli may distort student test performance and, consequently, accountability ratings.