Working Papers

Do Education Reform Increase Access to Learning?
By: Rie Kijima, Patricia Bromley, Jared Furuta, Lisa Overbey, Minju Choi, and Heitor Santos

Systematic education reforms are widespread and common; virtually every nation articulates and embarks on a path of education reform. However, despite their ubiquitous nature, education reforms are often criticized for failing to yield meaningful results. This study challenges the common critique that systematic education reforms are ineffective acts of window dressing. Using a longitudinal, cross-national database and two-way fixed effects, we assess the influence of education reforms on educational outcomes as measured by growth of access to secondary education. Our empirical analyses show that there is a strong positive association between countries' adoption of education reforms dedicated to expanding access to education and growth in secondary enrollment. We find evidence that counters the widely accepted conception that reforms do not improve the education systems. We also provide a nuanced framework for understanding where critiques of education reform emerge from: Gains are rather small in magnitude and diminish over time.

Education Reform and Nation-State Organizational Expansion, 1960-2018
By: Heitor Santos

When reforming their education systems, countries often create ministries, agencies, or committees tasked with the mission of addressing issues of strategic priority. Not only has formal organization expanded dramatically, but these professionalized structures often seem to pave the way for all other types of education reform. This paper explores the cultural and structural factors predicting national-level education reforms dedicated to the creation of these new organizational structures. Drawing on 7,161 country-year observations from the World Education Reform Database, it examines two dimension of nation-state actorhood. First, it proposes an account of the organizational expansion of the nation-state as an act of conformity with a cultural model. Secondly, it posits that organizational expansion also serves the purpose of image building, conferring legitimacy to the nation-state before the media and civil society. Findings provide support for a neo-institutional model of nation-state actorhood. The adoption of reforms dedicated to the creation of new organizational structures in a given year is associated with an increased likelihood that a country will also engage in organizational expansion in the subsequent year. This model of the nation-state as a rationalized actor is weakened in the 2010s, following the fragmentation of the liberal order. Countries in which media and civil society are more empowered to disseminate information about the government are more likely to adopt reforms dedicated to the creation of new organizational structures.

Education Reform and the Global Learning Crisis: When Does Reform Help? 
(figures separately provided here)
By: Rie Kijima and Patricia Bromley

In this study, we seek to understand the relationship between national education reforms and achievement. To do so, we draw on two newly established education databases to test if education reform is linked to increased learning outcomes. First, we use the Harmonized Learning Outcomes (HLO) Database which combines student test scores from major international and regional assessments. Second, we use the newly established World Education Reform Database that consists of national education reforms from 189 countries. Using synthetic control to estimate the causal impact of national education reforms on learning outcomes, our key results show that learning outcomes increase after countries articulate quality-focused national education reforms. Our study advances the field by providing new empirical evidence about the relationship between education reform and learning worldwide.