Short-run effects of accountability pressures on teacher policies and practices in the voucher system in Santiago, Chile.

This research analyzes the impact of the Adjusted Voucher Lawś school rankings on low-performing schools in Santiago, Chile, and provides evidence on the effects of the pressures of accountability systems on teacher policies and practices. The empirical strategy is based on the fact that schools are ranked according to their position on a set of thresholds. We used a generalization of the traditional regression discontinuity design for the case where treatment assignment is determined by variables.

Income Inequality or Performance Gap? A Multilevel Study of School Violence in 52 Countries.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the association between income inequality and school violence and between the performance inequality and school violence in two international samples.

Methods: The study used data from Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2011 and from the Central Intelligence Agency of United States which combined information about academic performance and students' victimization (physical and social) for 269,456 fourth-grade students and 261,747 eighth-grade students, with gross domestic product and income inequality data in 52 countries. Ecological correlations tested associations between income inequality and victimization and between school performance inequality and victimization among countries.