Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Amid growing evidence of the importance of non-cognitive skills for both cognitive skill development and long-term outcomes, understanding the effect of education policies on non-cognitive skill formation is of increasing interest. This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence of the effect of multigrade classes on non-cognitive skills. I exploit strictly enforced class size caps accompanied by centralized funding rules to generate IV estimates of this effect, using custom survey data administered to over 15,000 parents of Kindergarten and Grade 1 students, linked to publicly available administrative data on multigrade classes. I find that placing children in multigrade classes causes a substantially increase in peer relationship problems and hyperactivity relative to placement in single grade classrooms.