Estimates of the effect of school-imposed penalties for drug use on a student's consumption of marijuana are biased if both are determined by unobservable school or individual attributes. Reverse causality is also a potential challenge to retrieving estimates of the causal relationship, as the severity of school sanctions may simply reflect the…

The No Child Left Behind Act imposes sanctions on schools if the fraction of any of five racial groups of students demonstrating proficiency on a high stakes exam falls below a statewide pass rate. This system places pressure on school administrators to redirect educational resources from groups of students likely to demonstrate proficiency…

Wisconsin's influential Learnfare initiative is a conditional cash "penalty" program that sanctions a family's welfare grant when covered teens fail to meet school attendance targets. In the presence of reference-dependent preferences, Learnfare provides uniquely powerful financial incentives for student performance. However, a 10-county…

An important criticism of high-stakes testing policies--policies that reward or sanction schools based on their students' performance on standardized tests--is that they provide schools with an incentive to focus on those subjects that play a role in the accountability system while decreasing attention to those subjects that are not part of the…

Previous research on the effect of accountability programs on the distribution of student test score gains is decidedly mixed. This study examines the issue by estimating an educational production function in which test score gains are a function of the incentives schools have to focus instruction on below-proficient students. NCLB's threat of…