The Impact of All-Day Schools on Student Achievement - Evidence from Extending School Days in German Primary Schools

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of longer school days − induced by voluntary all-day programs in German primary schools − on school performance. Facing the challenge of selection into all-day school programs, we instrument all-day school expansion with construction subsidies from a large federal investment project. We combine data from the representative National Educational Panel Study covering more than 5'000 primary school students with municipality-level information on federal subsidies. Results show that all-day programs lead to improvements in language and math grades and to a higher probability of attending the academic track after primary school. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that the programs do not reduce educational inequality.

Keywords: all-day school, skill development, educational inequality

JEL Classification: J130, I280, I240