School quality, child wellbeing and parents’ satisfaction

Child wellbeing at school and enjoyment of the learning environment are important economic outcomes, in particular because a growing body of research shows they are strongly linked to later educational attainments and labour market success. However, the standard working assumption in the economics of education is that parents choose schools on the basis of test-score performance, and concerns about child happiness are largely ignored. In this paper, we address this omission and investigate to what extent parents’ and children's views of their school are linked to test-score based performance, and to what extent parents’ judgements of school quality are linked to their child's happiness. To do so, we use information on stated attitudes from the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England (LSYPE) matched to administrative records on pupil achievements in England. Our results suggest that test-score based measures of school quality tend to dominate parental satisfaction with the learning environment. However, school quality along this dimension is not strongly associated with pupil happiness and wellbeing at school.     

Which children benefit from non-parental care?

This paper investigates the relationship between non-parental care and toddlers’ behavioral outcomes using data from Australia. In particular, we explore heterogeneity in the relationship using the unique data on quality attributes: carer/child ratio, share of qualified staff, and expert ratings. The results suggest that full-time non-parental care, particularly center care, is negatively associated with toddlers’ behavioral outcomes. The negative association is however mitigated when centers have a larger number of carers per child. The negative association between non-parental care and behavioral outcomes also appears to be larger for children with better-educated parents.     

Valuing the benefits of the education provided by public universities: A case study of Minnesota

This study estimates the value of the private and public benefits that accrue to Minnesota residents from state government subsidies to higher education. In 2005, the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system received $832 million from Minnesota's state government to support educational programs. These subsidies allow these institutions to offer lower tuition rates, increasing the number of Minnesotans with bachelor and graduate degrees. We calculate that removing these subsidies would eventually lead to 14,000 fewer graduate degree holders in Minnesota, and reduce those with bachelor's degrees or “some college” by 42,000. The annual economic cost of these subsidies is about $326 million; this is less than annual state appropriations because most of those appropriations are income transfers from taxpayers to students, not an economic cost. We estimate that the annual value of the benefits of these subsidies is between $531 and $786 million ($381 and $570 million) when a 3% (5%) discount rate is used. We also discuss some of the income distribution consequences.     

Is traditional teaching really all that bad? A within-student between-subject approach

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the US, the estimation strategy exploits between-subject variation to control for unobserved student traits. Results indicate that traditional lecture style teaching is associated with significantly higher student achievement. No support for detrimental effects of lecture style teaching can be found even when evaluating possible selection biases due to unobservable teacher characteristics.     

Immigration and student achievement: Evidence from Switzerland

This paper investigates empirically whether immigrant students in Switzerland perform poorly compared to their native counterparts and provides some explanations. Using a national sample of the 2000 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) database, we first analyze the impact of immigrant status on pupils’ achievement. We find a negative and significant impact of immigrant status on test scores in reading, mathematics and science literacy, even after controlling for a set of characteristics. We then decompose the observed reading score gap between Swiss and immigrant students to identify whether gaps in endowments explain test score differences along the distribution. Lower endowments explain most of the achievement gap in reading between Swiss and second-generation immigrants. However, lower returns explain around one quarter of the achievement gap between Swiss and first-generation immigrants for the weakest pupils.     

Teachers’ unions and compensation: The impact of collective bargaining on salary schedules and performance pay schemes

This study examines the impact that collective bargaining has on multiple dimensions of teacher compensation, including average and starting salaries, early and late returns to experience, returns to graduate degrees, and the incidence of different pay for performance schemes. Using data from the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) and a more recent data set, the Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights (TR3), we find that collective bargaining has a significant impact on all aspects of current, qualification-specific salary schedules. Further, we find some evidence that bargaining impacts the design of performance pay plans. Specifically, unions tend to encourage teacher bonuses that are based on additional qualifications or duties, but discourage bonuses that directly reward improved student test scores.     

Does food insecurity at home affect non-cognitive performance at school? A longitudinal analysis of elementary student classroom behavior

This paper estimates models of the transitional effects of food insecurity experiences on children's non-cognitive performance in school classrooms using a panel of 4710 elementary students enrolled in 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade (1999-2003). In addition to an extensive set of child and household-level characteristics, we use information on U.S. counties to control for potential confounding effects of the local economic and noneconomic environment on children's household transitions between states of food insecurity and food security. The time horizon of our analysis affords insight into factors underlying children's formation of non-cognitive skills and the efficiency of classroom-based educational production in elementary school. Overall, we find significant negative developmental effects for children with food insecurity at home; and that children experiencing an early transition from food insecurity in 1st grade to food security in 3rd grade have even larger impairments that persist through 5th grade.     

Subject choice and earnings of UK graduates

Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and a considerably larger one within subject with individuals with the most favourable unobserved characteristics obtaining wages almost twice as large as those with the worst. Moreover, gender differences in wages within subjects are also large. We then simulate a graduate tax to calculate a willingness to pay – in form of tuition fees – to capture these subject wage premia.     

我国男子单人皮艇200 m选手起航阶段平衡技术比较研究

运用SIMI Motion 7.50运动分析系统,对2010年皮划艇(静水)春季冠军赛(上海)决赛阶段的男子单人皮艇200m(MK1-200m)决赛A、B、c组第4道3位选手的平衡情况进行分析,讨论优秀男子皮艇选手起航阶段的平衡特征.结果表明:选手出发前左右肩关节的晃动明显,幅度大,稳定性差,左右髋关节晃动程度低,稳定性好.晃动主要集中在上半身,选手在出发前维持身体平衡主要是靠肩关节、手臂的配合来完成的.选手在出发前的平衡情况直接影响到选手的最终比赛成绩,良好的出发前平衡状态有利于参赛选手的比赛发挥,建议针对肩关节以及整个上半身做平衡的专门训练,提高选手协凋配合能力,改善起航阶段平衡状况,提高比赛成绩,创出佳绩.     

外源性生长激素对运动大鼠骨骼肌形态和代谢机能的影响

目的:旨在观察生长激素对运动大鼠骨骼肌形态及机能的影响。方法:28只雄性成熟SD大鼠在适应性训练后随机分成安静对照组、安静注射组、运动对照组和运动注射组。运动组和运动注射组进行跑台训练8周。皮下注射rhGH。结果:1)注射生长激素后,出现了肌纤维排列松散,细胞核数量减少且体积变小,骨骼肌细胞间质水肿等现象。2)在8周的训练后,肌纤维横截面积稍有下降,但变化不明显。注射生长激素4周后,安静组和运动组均显著增加,且安静注射组大鼠的肌纤维横截面积显著高于运动注射组。3)运动组及运动注射组骨骼肌IGF-I明显升高。安静注射组及运动注射组血清IGF-I明显升高,运动组无明显变化。4)各组肌肉总蛋白含量有所增加,分别为安静注射组升高4.77%、运动组升高31.13%、运动注射组升高28.06%。5)运动组及运动注射组腓肠肌ATP酶活性升高。结论:1)8周耐力运动明显促进大鼠骨骼肌蛋白质合成,同时增加了骨骼肌IGF-I水平。2)外源性rhGH注射4周后,大鼠骨骼肌细胞形态产生肥大,骨骼肌肌纤维横截面积明显增加。3)外源性rhGH注射4周可以显著提高血清和骨骼肌IGF-I水平,且骨骼肌总蛋白的含量变化与骨骼肌IGF-I的变化趋势平行。4)外源性rhGH注射4周可以对肌纤维类型及分配产生调节作用,从而改变肌肉代谢酶活性。