The Impact of Peers on Student Outcomes: Evidence From the Connecticut Technical High School System

• In Event: New Evidence on the Effectiveness of Career and Technical Education

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of peer quality on the outcomes of students who applied to the Connecticut Career Technical High School System (CTHSS), comprised of 16 stand-alone high schools that enroll roughly 11,000 students. All students who attend the schools participate in career technical education (CTE). We focus on the potential peer effects that arise when students are exposed to a different cohort of peers because they gain admission to one of the CTHSS high schools or, if a student is denied admission or chooses not to attend, the peer effects that arise when students are exposed to the remaining peers in their traditional high schools.

Peer effects are defined broadly as any characteristic of a student’s peers such as their scholastic achievement, family background, behavior, or intrinsic motivation that affect a student’s own achievement and does so outside of other channels of the education process such as the quality of a student’s teachers, class size, etc. Thus, peer effects include peer-specific attributes that affect a student’s own performance such as peers’ academic ability, peers’ disruptive behavior, or, in the specific case of attending a CTHSS school, the potential effect of the motivation and interest in studying CTE of a student’s peers.

We broadly proxy for all these channels through which peer quality can affect a student’s own achievement by using the average 8th grade test scores of a student’s peer group when they enter high school. As several studies have found that peer effects can operate not only through the overall quality of a student’s peers but also directly through the quality of a student’s same-race peers (Hoxby, 2000; Angrist & Lang 2004; Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin, 2009), we also measure peer quality as the average 8th grade test scores of a student’s same-race peers.

We use data from the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) longitudinal data system for school years 2006-07 and 2012-13. The data include information on student characteristics as well as short- and medium-term educational outcomes, and college attendance drawn from the National Student Clearinghouse. We obtained information on student labor market outcomes through Connecticut’s P20Win data archive. We focus on four main outcomes: 1) whether a student is a high school graduate, 2) 10th grade composite reading and math test scores, 3) semesters of college attempted, and 4) adult labor market earnings.

Using the average 8th grade test scores of a student’s peer group as our measure of peer quality, we find positive and statistically significant effects of peers on a student’s probability of high school graduation and semesters in college for male students attending a CTHSS school. Using the race-specific average 8th grade test scores of a student’s peer group, we find strong evidence that higher ability same race peers lead to significant wage gains in adulthood. These results suggest that at least for adult earnings, it is the quality of a student’s same race peers that improves labor market outcomes rather than the overall quality of a student’s peer group.

Authors

• Eric J. Brunner, University of Connecticut

• Stephen L. Ross, University of Connecticut

• Andrew Ju, Jacksonville University