RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Who Benefits from a Smaller Honors Track?
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 0622-12391R1
DO 10.3368/jhr.0622-12391R1
A1 Szlendak, Zachary
A1 Mansfield, Richard
YR 2024
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2024/01/30/jhr.0622-12391R1.abstract
AB This paper characterizes the efficiency and distributional impact of changing the share of students enrolling in honors classrooms. Using North Carolina high school data, we estimate functions capturing the test score impact of alternative honors enrollment shares by predicted performance quintile. We find that smaller honors tracks (20%-30% of students) yield moderate performance gains for top quintile students (~.05-.07 score SDs relative to trackless courses) that decline monotonically across quintiles toward zero for bottom quintile students. However, expanding the honors share beyond 30-35% generates further (small) gains only for the middle quintile, while reducing top quintile gains and causing substantial bottom quintile losses.