Adequate (or Adipose?) Yearly Progress: Assessing the Effect of "No Child Left Behind" on Children's Obesity / Patricia M. Anderson, Kristin F. Butcher, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anderson, Patricia M.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Butcher, Kristin F.

Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w16873.

NBER working paper series no. w16873

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Adequate

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

This paper investigates how accountability pressures under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may affect children's rate of overweight. Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children's health. For example, schools may cut back on recess and physical education in favor of increasing time on tested subjects. To examine the impact of school accountability programs, we create a unique panel data set of schools in Arkansas that allows us to test the impact of NCLB rules on students' weight outcomes. Our main approach is to consider schools to be facing increased pressures if they are on the margin of passing - that is, if any subgroup at the school has a passing rate that is close to the AYP passing threshold, where we define close as being 5 percentage points above or below the threshold. We find evidence of small effects of accountability pressures on the percent of students at a school that are overweight. A follow-up survey of school principals points to reductions in physical activity and worsening of the food environment as potential mechanisms.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2011.