School Choice, School Quality and Postsecondary Attainment
Authors: David J. Deming, Justine S. Hastings, Thomas J. Kane, Douglas O. Staiger
National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series; Working Paper 17438; September 2011

Abstract: We study the impact of a public school choice lottery in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools on college enrollment and degree completion. We find a significant overall increase in college attainment among lottery winners who attend their first choice school. Using rich administrative data on peers, teachers, course offerings and other inputs, we show that the impacts of choice are strongly predicted by gains on several measures of school quality.

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Law in India to Help Kids Learn Closes Schools Instead
- Care2 make a difference, 12 Mar 2014
Sangeeta Pillai has a complaint for the regional government: her daughter’s private school was closed, compelling her to enter a government-funded school with classes as large as 100 students, where her daughter is forced to sit on the floor and her work is never checked by the indifferent and often absent teacher.

Education loan gets a big boost
- The Indian Express, 17 Mar 2014
Nearly nine lakh borrowers stand to benefit from the Interim Budget 2014-15 when finance minister P Chidambaram announced a moratorium period for all education loans taken up to March 31, 2009, and outstanding as of March 31, 2013.

Robotic education reaches govt schoolkids
- The Times of India, 16 Mar 2014
BANGALORE: Forget robots. Many government schools in the state don't even have basic facilities like toilets. But a Japanese company, in collaboration with a Bangalore firm, is bringing robotic education to government schools in the city.

India among 30 countries where ‘education’ attacked most often: Study
- The Times of India, 12 Mar 2014
NEW DELHI: About 140 schools were attacked by militants in the period 2009—2012 - a number high enough to put India in a list of the top 30 countries where education - teachers, institutions, students - has been the target of violence. Education Under Attack 2014, "a global study of threats or deliberate use of force against students, teachers, academics, education trade union members and government officials" was released recently.

Finnish Education Chief: ‘We Created a School System Based on Equality’
- The Atlantic, 17 Mar 2014
Finnish education often seems paradoxical to outside observers because it appears to break a lot of the rules we take for granted. Finnish children don’t begin school until age 7. They have more recess, shorter school hours than many U.S. children do (nearly 300 fewer hours per year in elementary school), and the lightest homework load of any industrialized nation. There are no gifted programs, almost no private schools, and no high-stakes national standardized tests.

Online education tutorials make great strides in India
- The National, 16 Mar 2014
NEW DELHI: When Balaji Thirumalai and Pady Srinivasan started their online tutorial website last year, they named it Clay6, referring to the six great unsolved mathematical problems as defined by the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Election the Best Time to Ask for More Money in Education
- The New Indian Express, 16 Mar 2014
The Annual School Education Reports (ASER), the gross neglect of higher education reflected in the battle for power between UGC and AICTE, curtailed research grants in the name of fiscal discipline, etc. are pointers calling for a tectonic shift in the thought process of policymakers. The fundamental unit in the education value chain is school education. Let us begin there first.

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