Statistical Estimates of the Effects of School Principals' Leadership on Students' Outcomes

Since the revision of the Ordinance for the Enforcement of the School Education Act in 2000, school principals have been expected to play an increasingly large role in school management, including deciding the goals of school curricula, daily operation of classes, the administration of teachers, and the dissemination of information about school activities and performance of children. Internationally, there is a significant accumulation of studies focused on the role of principals' leadership at schools. However, in Japan, there have been few studies that statistically examine the causal relationship between principals' leadership and students' outcome based on a large data set. This paper surveys the previous studies and, based on the National Assessments of Academic Ability, quantitatively examines the effects that principals may have on schools and the children. In the analysis, we take the following steps: (1) we estimate the value added effects that principals may have on students' outcome (test scores in mathematics and Japanese) as principals' fixed effects and construct its empirical distribution; (2) we estimate the relationship between principals' fixed effects and the attributes of principals and schools; and (3) we estimate the impact of the variance of principals' fixed effects within a school on changes in the variance of students' outcome. It is found that the variance of principals' fixed effects is positive, and that it becomes larger if schools' fixed effects are also controlled. There is no statistically stable and significant relationship between principals' fixed effects and their attributes (e.g., age, tenure, monthly salary, and the type of their academic degree). Finally, there is no evidence that, within the same schools, different principals have different effects on students' outcomes. All these findings are not necessarily consistent with each other, so it is necessary to explore more sophisticated analyses and verify the validity of underlining assumptions for each methodology.

Keywords: teacher quality, education production function, fixed effects, National Assessment of Academic Ability, school principal
JEL Classification: I20, I21, J45

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The Effects of Disclosing School-Level Test Scores of the National Assessment of Academic Ability on Pupils' Academic Achievement

(Abstract)

As a result of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's revision of policy on the treatment of the results of the National Assessment of Academic Ability (NAAA) in 2014, it has been possible for education boards to publish school-level test scores of NAAA conducted at elementary and junior high schools in the districts under their jurisdiction. This paper analyzes how education boards' publication of school-level test scores at elementary schools—particularly the average percentage of correct answers—affects pupils' academic achievement using data of sixth-grade pupils who attended public elementary schools in Tokyo between academic years 2008 and 2017. We find that the publication of school-level test results has the effect of raising the academic achievement of pupils at schools for which the test results are disclosed. In addition, we find that in local communities where school-level test results are disclosed, the frequency of after-school supplementary study increases and pupils do more homework.

Keywords: National Assessment of Academic Ability, Publication of school-level test scores, Academic achievement of pupils, Method of operating schools, Pupils' behavior
JEL Classification: D80, I20, I28

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Accountability in Education Policy and Recognized Cases of School Bullying: An Analysis of Municipality-Level Data in Tokyo

(Abstract)

In Japan, municipal education boards are responsible for education policymaking at the municipality level. Until recently, all the boards across Japan were collective executive organizations led by kyoiku-cho (top officials who formulate policies) and kyoiku-iincho (heads of boards who check policies). With the two senior officials coexisting, the common criticism was that it was unclear who was accountable for municipal education policies. Acknowledging this, the Act on the Organization and Operation of Local Educational Administration was revised in 2014, to make fundamental changes to the accountability system. The gist of this revision was that a new kyoiku-cho, a post created through the unification of kyoiku-iincho and (old) kyoiku-cho, was to be held solely accountable for education policies in the municipality. This paper examines how this improved clarity in the accountability system has affected school bullying, a much-debated social issue in Japan which has been increasingly linked to serious incidents, such as student suicides. We conjecture that under the new system the number of recognized cases of bullying increase, because the new system gives the new kyoiku-cho a strong incentive to detect and deal with bullying at an early stage. We test this conjecture using municipality-level data in Tokyo, Japan. Our estimation exploits the fact that the new system was installed across municipalities in Tokyo in a staggered manner from 2015 onwards. We find that, consistent with the conjecture, the number of recognized cases of bullying increased in municipalities that installed the new system early, compared with the number in other municipalities.

Keywords: education boards, school bullying, accountability
JEL Classification: I21, J24

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Impact of Decreasing Job Opportunities due to Natural Disasters on Human Capital Investment
—Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake—

(Abstract)

This research examines the impact of decreasing job opportunities for high school graduates due to the Great East Japan Earthquake on their career choices and on junior high school students test scores. Using raw data from the School Basic Survey and the National Assessments of Academic Ability, our analysis found that additional educational investments were not made despite the decrease in opportunities for high school graduates to work in industries that had previously hired them if an alternative labor market existed. This was prevalent among men, who found it easier to find jobs in industries contributing to post-earthquake recovery. On the other hand, among women, for whom an alternative labor market was small, the university enrollment rate and the junior high school test scores rose. These findings suggest that a change in job opportunities in the labor market causes a change in educational investment.

Keywords: Great East Japan earthquake, education, test scores, labor market
JEL Classification: I21, J16, J22, Q54

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School Quality and Residential Property Values: A Review of Recent Developments and Applications

(Abstract)

The measurement of consumers' marginal willingness to pay for public education services provides empirical evidence useful for assessing and improving existing education policies. This research explains the results of recent studies on the relationship between school quality and residential property values based on the hedonic approach. We sort out knowledge obtained through past studies and discuss the direction of future studies from the following three viewpoints: identification strategy for the purpose of empirical analysis, estimated value of willingness to pay, and specific topics of analysis.

Keywords: school quality, real estate prices, hedonic approach
JEL Classification: C21, I21, H75, R23

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Constructing an Administrative Database on Children

(Abstract)

In recent years, empirical analyses in economics have made progress in the use of data accumulated by central and/or local governments as part of their operations. Administrative data are exhaustive data sets collected on a regular basis with respect to subjects of various public policies. As they are accumulated for the purpose of the execution of operations, the data are superior to sample surveys in terms of numerical accuracy, infrequency of omissions and no replies, and number of observations. On the other hand, it is not easy to use administrative data for academic purposes due to factors such as legal regulations intended to deal with problems mainly related to confidentiality, and burdensome administrative procedures. This paper first sorts out the merits and demerits of academic use of administrative data and introduces domestic and foreign examples of academic use. Then, as an example of database construction, this paper takes up the database on pupils and students who go to public school in Tokyo's Adachi Ward, which is used in the following articles in this volume, and explains the background to the construction and the structure of the database. We researchers were deeply involved in the development of this database. As this is presumed to be a rare case in Japan, it is significant to explain the detailed background with respect to how the database was developed.

Keywords: administrative data, Adachi Ward
JEL Classification: C81, I20, H20

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Relationship between School Attendance Support and Academic Performance:
An analysis of Panel Data from Adachi Ward

(Abstract)

The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between children's received school attendance support and their academic performance, likelihood of obesity, amount of studying done at home, and general attitude toward studying, and between their academic performance and physical capabilities, based on panel data covering all children attending public elementary schools and junior high schools in Tokyo's Adachi Ward. The panel data were obtained by merging four datasets: i) Adachi Comprehensive Survey of Acquisition of Basic Academic Skills (covering children in the second grade to ninth grade), which was conducted independently by the municipal government of Adachi Ward in academic years 2009 to 2017, ii) the list of all pupils and students (list of school-age children), iii) data on application for and receipt of school attendance support, and iv) the Survey on the Physical Capabilities of Pupils and Students in Adachi Ward. The results showed that children whose households have been beneficiaries of public assistance may face difficulties in learning even when student-fixed effects were applied. On the other hand, we confirmed that academic performance and at-home studying are significantly superior in pupils and students who are eligible for municipal school attendance support than those in households with ongoing public assistance. When controlled for student-fixed effects, we also found a positive correlation between academic performance and physical capabilities, and a negative correlation between academic performance and obesity.

Keywords: school attendance support, academic performance, obesity, at-home studying, general attitude toward studying, physical capabilities
JEL Classification: I21, J24

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Effects of a Remedial Education Program at Municipal Elementary Schools:
The Case of Adachi Ward

(Abstract)

We investigated the effects of a remedial education program provided to third- and fourth-grade pupils who attend public schools in Tokyo's Adachi Ward for the purpose of supplementary study in Japanese language arts and mathematics. For the analysis, panel data on all pupils attending municipal elementary schools in Adachi Ward were used. Our instrumental variables are based on the variations in the academic achievements of pupils participating in the program across schools. We found that the remedial education program is effective in improving the correct answer rate in both Japanese language arts and mathematics. Our point estimates suggest that the remedial education program had large effects on pupils who failed to reach target performance in the third grade. In addition, it was estimated that the remedial education program had larger effects on pupils who received two lessons than on pupils who received one lesson.

Keywords: supplementary study
JEL Classification: I21, J24

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