| Description |
Based on the premise that increases in productivity are, in part, a function of higher education performance and improved secondary education output, this study considers the various public education career paths available to Utah public high school students, and examines the effects each have on secondary education performance and graduation, and postsecondary higher education enrollment, time-to-completion, and degree attainment for the Utah public high school graduation cohorts of 2008 and 2009. The focus of this paper is an examination of the Utah Data Alliance longitudinal data set compiled by in cooperation with the Utah Education Policy Center, Utah Education Network, Utah College of Applied Technology, Utah State Office of Education, Utah System of Higher Education and Utah Department of Workforce Services. This data set allows for individual level examinations of Utah public education students throughout their public education careers and into the workforce. The data examination and estimated outcomes are driven by the use of Propensity Score Matching in an effort to limit the endogeneity and self-selection bias present in nonexperimental, observed data samples. The quasiexperimental design structure of this method provides a path towards the assignment of causality. Though Propensity Score Matching offers such a pathway, as an estimator its strength is reliant on the existence of complete and quality matching variables, which are limited in the Utah education longitudinal data sets. Taking participation in Dual-Credit Enrollment and Early College High School as reforms in secondary, applied as treatments on student populations, and matching students by demographic and performance criteria prior to the treatment application, we're able to estimate the average treatment effects on the treated of the two reforms separately and collectively. The estimated outcomes on secondary education standardized testing and graduation, and postsecondary higher education enrollment and degree attainment are positive or reflect positive effects for each of the examined student populations. Of particular interest, however, is the scale of the effects on the various secondary and higher education outcomes and what this may yield with respect to public education policy. |
