A combination of school mismanagement, weak financial situation and low student attainments led to a permanent closure of primary schools in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2007. This study examines if the school closure positively affected the test scores that children achieved on a standardized...

The empirical literature on education and crime suggests that both criminal behavior and educational attainment are transferred from parents to children. However, the impact of criminal involvement of parents on educational outcomes of children tends to be ignored, even though the entailed...

Community schools are quickly increasing in number, but there is no evidence whether they are more effective than traditional schools. No study has empirically compared community schools to other schools. This study reviews the literature on the effectiveness of community schools. We focus on...

Policies that aim at improving student achievement frequently increase instructional time, for example by means of an extended day program. There is, however, hardly any evidence that these programs are effective, and the few studies that allow causal inference indicate that we should expect...

In an attempt to stop the rampant suburbanization, which countries experienced after World War II, a 'new town' policy was enrolled. As a major objective, and related to its origins, new towns were effective in attracting low and medium income households. Nowadays, cities and municipalities...

This study examines whether Cultural and Artistic Education that was implemented by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in 1999 caused students to participate more in high cultural events. A unique feature of the intervention was that students were free to choose the type of...

This paper examines which conguration of teaching activities (expressed in, e.g., problem solving, homework, lecturing) maximizes student performance. To do so, it formulates a non- parametric eciency model that is rooted in the Data Envelopment Analysis literature. In the model, we account for...