Non-Reallocation Resource Isolation
Observational StudyJournal Article
Field experiments evaluating grade-specific school interventions risk downward bias if school administrators reallocate existing school resources or teachers away from control grades to supplement treated grades.
Picture this
Institutional rigidity that prevents principals from moving teachers or rooms between grades works like fixed structural bulkheads on a ship, keeping resources locked strictly within designated compartments so that experimental changes in one room cannot spill over into another.
What the evidence says
Zero observed instances of teacher or student reassignment across standards occurred because automatic promotion rules and fixed classroom counts removed principal discretion, ensuring control grades remained valid comparison groups.
- Who was studied
- N = 122 municipal primary schools in Vadodara and 77 schools in Mumbai, India.
- How
- Institutional analysis of administrative rule constraints governing class assignments, automatic student promotion, and rigid teacher allocation in public primary schools.
What to do
Verify that rigid institutional rules prevent administrative resource shifts across grades before utilizing alternate grade levels within the same school as valid experimental control groups.
From the source
"Teachers were assigned to classes before the program was implemented, and we observed no instance of subsequent reassignment to a different standard. There are essentially no other resources to speak of that the head teacher could allocate to the grade that did not receive the balsakhi."
Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India