Language Immersion and Student Achievement

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-10-2021

Publication Title

Education Economics

Abstract

Language immersion education uses a non-English language for a significant portion of instruction. One goal is to develop bilingual students, which many argue provides cognitive benefits. Using data from school choice lotteries, I estimate the effect of random assignment to a language immersion school on achievement in math and reading. Winning the lottery has a statistically significant positive effect on math scores, and a positive but statistically insignificant effect on reading. Several peer and school characteristics are ruled out as non-language based alternative explanations for the higher math scores of lottery winners.

Keywords

Bilingual education; Magnet schools; School choice lottery

Disciplines

Education | Language Interpretation and Translation

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