Sorting Effects in a Compensatory Education Program

By analyzing a French program that targeted low-achieving and socially disadvantaged junior high schools we provide evidence that school-based compensatory education policies create sorting effects. We use geocoded original data and a regression discontinuity framework to show that the program decreases the individual probability of attending a treated school and symmetrically increases the probability of attending a private school. The effects are driven by pupils from high socioeconomic backgrounds, resulting in an increase in social segregation across schools. Laurent Davezies is a researcher at Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST). Manon Garrouste is an assistant professor at University of Lille, LEM-CNRS (UMR 9221) ([email protected]). The authors gratefully acknowledge material support from the statistical service of the French Ministry of Education (DEPP). In particular, they thank Jean-Paul Caille, AgnÈs Brizard, Sylvie Le Laidier, CÉdric Afsa, and Caroline Simonis-Sueur for their help, as well as the participants to the DEPP's workshop for their comments. For helpful remarks and comments, they are grateful to Nicolas Jacquemet, Miren Lafourcade, Son-Thierry Ly, Laurent Gobillon, Julien Grenet, Francis Kramarz, Eric Maurin, Alain Trannoy, Pascaline Dupas, Robert Gary-Bobo, seminar participants at CREST, UniversitÉ Paris 1, UniversitÉ de Bourgogne, at the French Ministry of Housing and Territorial Equality, and at the Paris School of Economics, as well as conference participants at the 5th International Workshop on Applied Economics of Education, and European Economic-Association and Econometric Society 2014 Meetings. This work was financially supported by the Investissements d'Avenir grant (ANR-11-IDEX-0003/Labex Ecodec/ANR-11 -LABX0047). Manon Garrouste acknowledges support from a Labex Phd grant, Labex iPOPs ANRl0-LABX-0089, hosted by Institut national d'Études dÉmographiques (INED), in partnership with heSam UniversitÉ. The data used in this article can be obtained by contacting the statistical service of the French Ministry of Education and signing a research agreement. The authors are willing to assist ([email protected]).