Title

Charter Schools and Labor Market Outcomes

Author(s)

Will Dobbie Will Dobbie (Princeton University and NBER)

Roland G. Fryer Roland Fryer (Harvard University and NBER)

Abstract

We estimate the impact of charter schools on early-life labor market outcomes using administrative data from Texas. We find that, at the mean, charter schools have no impact on test scores and a negative impact on earnings. No Excuses charter schools increase test scores and four-year college enrollment, but have a small and statistically insignificant impact on earnings, while other types of charter schools decrease test scores, four-year college enrollment, and earnings. Moving to school-level estimates, we find that charter schools that decrease test scores also tend to decrease earnings, while charter schools that increase test scores have no discernible impact on earnings. In contrast, high school graduation effects are predictive of earnings effects throughout the distribution of school quality. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of what might explain our set of facts.

Creation Date

2016-07

Section URL ID

Paper Number

600

URL

https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01cr56n346x/3/Charter%20Schools%20and%20Labor%20Market%20Outcomes

File Function

Jel

I20; I26

Keyword(s)

Suppress

false

Series

1