The Effects of School Libraries on Language Skills

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The Effects of School Libraries on Language Skills: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in India1 March 2013 Evan Borkum (Mathematica Policy Research) Fang He (US Government Accountability Office) Leigh L. Linden (The University of Texas at Austin) Abstract: We conduct a randomized controlled trial of an Indian school library program. Overall, the program had no impact on students’ scores on a language skills test administered after 16 months. The estimates are sufficiently precise to rule out effects larger than 0.053 and 0.037 standard deviations, based on the 95 and 90 percent confidence intervals. This finding is robust across individual competencies and subsets of the sample. The method of treatment, however, does seem to matter—physical libraries have no effect, while visiting librarians actually reduce test scores. We find no impact on test scores in other subjects or attendance rates. JEL Codes: I21, I28, O15 Key Words: Library, Randomized Controlled Trial, Education, Development 1 This project could not have been completed without the assistance of many individuals. We are indebted to Arvind Venkatadri, Dr. K. Vaijayanti, Ashok Kamath, Shreedevi Sharma, Pratima Bandekar, and many other staff members at the Akshara Foundation. Sadly, Pratima Bandekar, a colleague on many of our research projects, passed away during the course of this project. Her plucky, positive spirit is greatly missed, and we dedicate this effort to her. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. Borkum: Mathematica Policy Research, P.O. Box 2393 Princeton, NJ 08543-2393, eborkum@mathematica-mpr.com. He: US Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street, NW, Room 4G48, Washington, DC 20548, hef@gao.gov. Corresponding Author. Linden: Department of Economics, The University of

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