This paper examines the scalability of the results from the Tennessee Student- Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project, a prominent educational experiment. We explore how the misalignment between the experimental design and the econometric model affects researchers’ ability to learn about the intervention’s scalability. We document heterogeneity in compliance with class-size reduction that is more extensive than previously acknowledged and discuss its consequences for the evaluation of the experiment. Guided by this finding, we implement a new econometric framework incorporating heterogeneous treatment effects and endogenous class size determination. We find that the effect of class size on test scores differs considerably across schools, with only a small fraction of schools having significant benefits from reduced class sizes. We discuss the challenges this poses for the intervention’s scalability and conclude by analyzing targeted class-size interventions.
Publication Type
              Working Paper
          File Description
              First version, April 2024
          JEL Codes
          C51: Model Construction and Estimation
          H52: National Government Expenditures and Education
          I20: Education and Research Institutions: General
          J13: Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth