Abstract: We present results of a randomized trial testing alternative approaches of mapping student achievement into rewards for teachers. Teachers in 216 schools in western China were assigned to performance pay schemes where teacher performance was assessed by one of three different methods. We find that teachers offered “pay-for-percentile” incentives (Barlevy and Neal 2012) outperform teachers offered simpler schemes based on class average achievement or average gains over a school year. Moreover, pay-for-percentile incentives produced broad-based gains across students within classes. That teachers respond to relatively intricate features of incentive schemes highlights the importance of close attention to performance pay design. 

Abstract: Recent attention has been placed on whether integrating Information Communication Technology (hereafter, ICT) into education can effectively improve learning outcomes. However, the empirical evidence of the impact of programmes that adopt ICT in schooling is mixed. Theory suggests it may be due to differences in whether or not the ICT pro-grammes are integrated into a teaching programme of a class. Unfortunately, few empirical studies compare the relative effectiveness of programmes that integrate ICT into teaching with the ones that do not. In order to understand the most effective way to design new programmes that attempt to utilize ICT to improve English learning, we conducted a clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) with some schools receiving ICT that was in-tegrated into the teaching programme of the class; with some schools that received ICT without having it integrated into the teaching programme; and with other schools being used as controls. The RCT involved 6304 fifth grade students studying English in 127 rural schools in rural China. Our results indicate that when the programme is integrated into the teaching programme of a class it is effective in improving student test scores relative to the control schools. No programme impact, however, is found when the ICT programme is not integrated into the teaching program. We also find that when ICT programmes are inte-grated into teaching, the programmes work similarly for students that have either high or low initial (or baseline) levels of English competency. When ICT programmes are not in-tegrated with teaching, they only raise the educational performance of English students who were performing better during the baseline.

The debate over whether boarding school is beneficial for students still exists in both developing and developed countries. In rural China, as a result of a national school merger program that began in 2001, the number of boarding students has increased dramatically. Little research has been done, however, to measure how boarding status may be correlated with nutrition, health and educational outcomes. In this paper, we compare the outcomes of boarding to those of non-boarding students using a large, aggregate dataset that includes 59 rural counties across five provinces in China. We fi nd that for all outcomes boarding students perform worse than non-boarding students. Despite these differences, the absolute levels of all outcomes are low for both boarding and non-boarding students, indicating a need for new policies that will target all rural students regardless of their boarding status.

Abstract: The general goal of the present study is to analyze whether children with siblings lag behind their only-child counterparts in terms of health and nutrition, cognition and educational performance, and non-cognitive outcomes. We draw on a dataset containing 25 871 observations constructed from three school-level surveys spanning four provinces in China. The analysis compares children with siblings and only children aged 9 to 14 years old in terms of eight different health, cognitive and non-cognitive indicators. We find that with the exception of the anemia rate, health outcomes of children with siblings are statistically indistinguishable from those of only children. In terms of cognition, children with siblings performed better than only children. Moreover, outcomes of children with siblings are statistically indistinguishable from those of only children in terms of the non-cognitive outcomes provided by measures of anxiety. According to our results, the same general findings are true regardless of whether the difference between children with and without siblings is disaggregated by gender.

 Supplemental Tables to the paper: "Impact of Teacher Professional Development Program on Student Achievement in China"