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Sarah Ausmus Smith

Sarah Ausmus Smith, Ron Zimmer.

Over the past fifty years, school districts have consolidated in an effort to achieve economies of scale. While the determinants and effects of district mergers on operations have been studied (Gordon and Knight 2006; Duncombe and Yinger 2007; Jones et al 2008), the impact on communities has not. In small towns, schools not only educate, but also provide stable employment and are a cornerstone for community engagement and local identity. In this article, we examine whether district mergers have adverse effects on the community at large. We evaluate the effects of rural school district consolidations on town population size, number of schools, and property values using a propensity score matched difference-in-differences design, leveraging a 2003 Arkansas state law requiring reorganization using an enrollment cutoff. We estimate that the reform led to reductions in population, community schools, and property value assessments.

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Ron Zimmer, Richard Buddin, Sarah Ausmus Smith, Danielle Duffy.

When charter schools first entered the landscape, the debate was contentious, with both advocates and critics using strong rhetoric. Advocates often sold charter schools as a silver bullet solution for not only the students who attend these schools, but the broader traditional public school system as well. Similarly, critics painted charter schools as an apocalyptic threat to public schools. To inform this debate, research has evolved over time, with much of the first generation (through about 2005) of research studies focusing on the effect charter schools have on test scores almost exclusively using non-experimental designs. The second generation of studies more frequently used experimental designs and broadened the scope of outcomes beyond test scores. Furthermore, the second generation of studies has also included studies seeking to explain the variance in performance. In this survey of the research, we summarize the findings across both generations of studies, but we put a greater emphasis on the second generation than prior literature reviews. This includes an examination of indirect effects, examination of explanation of charter effectiveness, and the recent use of charter schools as a mechanism of turning around low-performing schools.

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