Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In this paper we exploit a unique natural experiment to estimate the impacts of school tracking on test score achievement and student behavior.  Our data comes from a school district that places 4th grade students whose score on a standardized test of cognitive ability falls in the top 10% of the national distribution into self-contained “gifted” classrooms.  We identify a causal relationship between academic track and these students’ achievement by exploiting a discontinuity in entrance exam scores, and find that there is no discernable effect of being placed in the high ability classroom. We also find no discernable effects on the students who do not qualify for the program.