Does public oversight of schools reduce inequality in education? Evidence from monitoring and inspections of schools

Abstract
This paper investigates the causal impact of public oversight of primary schools by the Dutch Inspectorate of Education. The inspectorate employs an escalation ladder of interventions when schools fail to meet performance targets in subsequent years. Using administrative data over 2010-2022, we find that school inspections lift the performance of failing schools above the minimum acceptable threshold. Students in the targeted schools benefit in the short-run by having higher test scores and this effect appears not to be induced by strategic behavior of schools.
In the longer run these students enroll in higher levels of secondary and post-secondary education. This impact is largest for students with lower socioeconomic backgrounds. We also find larger effects for schools publicly labelled as ‘weak’. Joint work with: Myrthe Frenk, Tijana Prokic-Breuer and Stan Vermeulen.