Volume 8, Number 3 (Summer) 1973
Garfinkel, Irwin, and Edward M. Gramlich. 1973. "A Statistical Analysis of the OEO Experiment in Educational Performance Contracting." Journal of Human Resources 8(3):275-305.
Private educational firms claimed to be able to substantially increase the reading and mathematics achievement test scores of disadvantaged students. The OEO Performance Contracting Experiment tested this claim. Although analysis of experimental effects is complicated by imperfect matching of experimental and control students and by measurement error in pretest scores, there are statistical techniques for dealing with these problems. Our results indicate that the private companies which participated in the experiment did not have the capability of bringing about any great improvement in the educational status of disadvantaged students.
Garfinkel is Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Gramlich is on the staff of the Brookings Institution. In the process of preparing this report, we have become indebted to a large number of people. We would like that thank our supervisors, John O. Wilson and Thomas K. Glennan, for getting us started on the project, criticizing our work, and bearing up well when our progress flagged; a review group at the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, consisting of Arthur Goldberger, Glen Cain, Robert Haveman, and Burt Barnow, for setting us straight on a major error; Fritz Scheuren, Gary Liberson, Jane Lee, and Lester Klein of OEO for statistical advice and computer programming; Jeffry Schiller, Charles Stalford, and Judy Glotzer of OEO for helping us to understand the structure of the experiment and interpret the results; Allen Schenck and Roger Cote of Battelle Institute for periodic assistance throughout the project; and finally many other individuals at OEO, too numberous to list, for typing, doing calculations, and criticizing earlier drafts of this paper.
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