TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Borghans, Lex
AU  - Golsteyn, Bart H.H.
AU  - Zölitz, Ulf
        TI  - School Quality and the Development of Cognitive Skills between Age Four and Six
        PY  - 2015/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9200
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp9200
        AB  - This paper studies the extent to which young children develop their cognitive ability in high and low quality schools. We use a representative panel data set containing cognitive test scores of 4-6 year olds in Dutch schools. School quality is measured by the school's average achievement test score at age 12. Our results indicate that children in high-quality schools develop their skills substantially faster than those in low-quality schools. The results remain robust to the inclusion of initial ability, parental background, and neighborhood controls. Moreover, using proximity to higher-achieving schools as an instrument for school choice corroborates the results. The robustness of the results points toward a causal interpretation, although it is not possible to erase all doubt about unobserved confounding factors.
        KW  - child development
KW  - cognitive skills
KW  - school quality
        ER  -