Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1145:
Which School Systems Sort Weaker Students into Smaller Classes? International Evidence
Martin R. West and Ludger Wößmann
Abstract: We examine whether the sorting of differently achieving
students into differently sized classes results in a regressive or
compensatory pattern of class sizes for a sample of national school
systems. Sorting effects are identified by subtracting the causal effect of
class size on performance from their total correlation. Our empirical
results indicate substantial compensatory sorting within and especially
between schools in many countries. Only the United States, a country with
decentralized education finance and considerable residential mobility,
exhibits regressive between-school sorting. Between-school sorting is more
compensatory in systems with ability tracking. Within-school sorting is
more compensatory when administrators rather than teachers assign students
to classrooms.
Keywords: Student sorting, class size, educational achievement; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: I28; H52; D73; (follow links to similar papers)
29 pages, January 2003
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