This paper seeks to understand the learning outcomes that prevail across key subpopulations in China today. Data from a nationally representative survey show that rural youth are two years behind urban children in math and Chinese. Non-Han minorities, children in poorer counties, and children with less-educated parents are the most vulnerable.

Previous studies reflect a high prevalence of depressive symptoms among Taiwanese adolescents (ages 13–18), but there is an absence of literature related to the risk of depression of children in Taiwan (ages 6–12), particularly among potentially vulnerable subgroups. To provide insight into the distribution of depressive symptoms among children in rural Taiwan and measure the correlation between academic performance, we conducted a survey of 1655 randomly selected fourth and fifth-grade students at 92 sample schools in four relatively low-income counties or municipalities. Using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) we assessed the prevalence of depressive symptoms in this sample, in addition to collecting other data, such as performance on a standardized math test as well as information on a number of individual and household characteristics. We demonstrate that the share of children with clinically significant symptoms is high: 38% of the students were at risk of general depression (depression score ≥ 16) and 8% of the students were at risk of major depression (depression score > 28). The results of the multivariate regression and heterogeneous analysis suggest that poor academic performance is closely associated with a high prevalence of depressive symptoms. Among low-performing students, certain groups were disproportionately affected, including girls and students whose parents have migrated away for work. Results also suggest that, overall, students who had a parent who was an immigrant from another country were at greater risk of depression. These findings highlight the need for greater resource allocation toward mental health services for elementary school students in rural Taiwan, particularly for at-risk groups. 

Educational tracks create differential expectations of student ability, raising concerns that the negative stereotypes associated with lower tracks might threaten student performance. The authors test this concern by drawing on a field experiment enrolling 11,624 Chinese vocational high school students, half of whom were randomly primed about their tracks before taking technical skill and math exams. As in almost all countries, Chinese students are sorted between vocational and academic tracks, and vocational students are stereotyped as having poor academic abilities. Priming had no effect on technical skills and, contrary to hypotheses, modestly improved math performance. In exploring multiple interpretations, the authors highlight how vocational tracking may crystallize stereotypes but simultaneously diminishes stereotype threat by removing academic performance as a central measure of merit. Taken together, the study implies that reminding students about their vocational or academic identities is unlikely to further contribute to achievement gaps by educational track.

In recent years, researchers have begun to focus attention on trying to identify systematic factors that cause interventions to have different impacts in different contexts. In this paper, we seek to understand whether the age of principals at schools implementing nutrition-based interventions has an impact on program outcomes. To explore the relative effectiveness of younger and older school principals, we use data from five large-scale, nutrition-related randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 12,595 primary school students in 336 schools in rural China. Our results, using two age cut-offs for distinguishing young principals from old ones, indicate that improvements in the health and nutrition outcomes of students were significantly higher in schools with younger principals than in schools run by older principals (when using a cutoff of 40 years old). When using a cut-off of 45 years old, the point estimates of the impacts similarly suggest that young principals are more effective, although the results are not significantly significant. The results are similar when we look at the impact of disaggregated interventions in schools managed by young and old principals. The findings are clear that the interventions implemented by older principals are not more effective than those implemented by younger principals.

Empirical evidence from developed countries supports the idea that parent-teacher interaction is highand improves student outcomes. The evidence from developing countries is, however, decidedly mixed.Using longitudinal data from nearly 6000 students and their 600 teachers in rural China, we show theprevalence of parent-teacher interaction is generally much lower than that of developed countries. Wealso show parent-teacher interaction, when it exists, can have positive effects on raising academicachievement and reducing learning anxiety. We demonstrate that the prevalence and effectiveness ofparent-teacher interaction in a developing country context varies considerably due to both demand-sideand supply-side factors.

Studies suggest that students’ prior performance can shape subsequent teacher evaluations, but the magnitude of reputational effects and their implications for educational inequality remain unclear. Existing scholarship presents two major perspectives that exist in tension: do teachers primarily use reputational information as a temporary signal that is subsequently updated in response to actual student performance? Or do teachers primarily use reputational information as a filter that biases perception of subsequent evidence, thus crystallizing student reputations and keeping previously poor-performing students stuck in place? In a field experiment, we recruited a random sample of 832 junior high school teachers from the second-most populous province of China to grade a sequence of four essays written by the same student, and we randomly assign both the academic reputation of the student and the quality of the essays produced. We find that (1) reputational information influences how teachers grade, (2) teachers rely on negative information more heavily than positive information, and (3) negative reputations are crystallized by a single behavioral confirmation. These results suggest that students can escape their prior reputations, but to do so, they must contradict them immediately, with a single confirmation sufficient to crystallize a negative reputation.

Although students in rural and migrant schools in China generally have not performed well, a share of each cohort has been able to thrive in school and to test into academic high school and college. To understand the origins of persistence, specifically, why some students learn more than do others, researchers have identified certain sources of the problem. Few studies, however, have paid attention to the role that low levels of cognitive development of students play in their academic performance. To address this gap, this study focuses on the role that cognition may play in terms of the academic achievement of rural students. We analyze data from more than 10,000 primary school students from private migrant schools in Beijing and Suzhou and from public rural schools in Henan and Anhui, using the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices test. Our results show high rates of developmental delay (about 33% of the students have Ravens scores that are less than one standard deviation lower than an international mean). Further, the rates of delay are large among all subgroups in the study, including rural children who attend migrant schools in cities and those who live in rural areas and attend rural public schools. The results also suggest that the cognition of students is highly correlated with their educational performance and, in fact, is by far the most important factor in their academic achievement.

Despite massive investments in teacher professional development (PD) programs in developing countries, there is little evidence on their effectiveness. We present results of a large-scale, randomized evaluation of a national PD program in China in which teachers were randomized to receive PD; PD plus follow-up; PD plus evaluation of the command of PD content; or no PD. Precise estimates indicate PD and associated interventions failed to improve teacher and student outcomes after one year. A detailed analysis of the causal chain shows teachers find PD content to be overly theoretical, and PD delivery too rote and passive, to be useful.

Unlike performance incentives for private sector managers, little is known about performance incentives for managers in public sector bureaucracies. Through a randomized trial in rural China, we study performance incentives rewarding school administrators for reducing student anemia -- as well as complementarity between incentives and orthogonally assigned discretionary resources. Large (but not small) incentives and unrestricted grants both reduced anemia, but incentives were more cost-effective. Although unrestricted grants and small incentives do not interact, grants fully crowd-out the effect of larger incentives. Our findings suggest that performance incentives can be effective in bureaucratic environments, but they are not complementary to discretionary resources. 

Importance:Uncorrected refractive error causes 90% of poor vision among Chinese children.

Background:Little is known about teachers' influence on children's glasses wear.

Design:Cohort study.

Participants:Children at 138 randomly selected primary schools in Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, China, with uncorrected visual acuity (VA)≤6/12 in either eye correctable to >6/12 in both eyes, and their teachers.

Methods:Teachers and children underwent VA testing and completed questionnaires about spectacles use and attitudes towards children's vision.

Main Outcome Measures:Children's acceptance of free glasses, spectacle purchase and wear.

Results: A total of 882 children (mean age 10.6 years, 45.5% boys) and276 teachers (mean age 37.9 years, 67.8% female) participated. Among teachers,20.4% (56/275) believed glasses worsened children's vision, 68.4% (188/275) felt eye exercises prevented myopia, 55.0% (151/275) thought children with modest myopia should not wear glasses and 93.1% (256/275) encouraged children to obtain glasses.Teacher factors associated with children's glasses-related behaviour included believing glasses harm children's vision (decreased purchase, univariate model: relative risk [RR] 0.65, 95% CI 0.43, 0.98,P< 0.05); supporting children's classroom glasses wear (increased glasses wear, univariate model: RR 2.20, 95% CI 1.23,3.95,P< 0.01); and advising children to obtain glasses (increased free glasses acceptance, multivariate model: RR 2.74, 95% CI 1.29, 5.84,P< 0.01; increased wear, univariate model: RR 2.93, 95% CI 1.45, 5.90,P< 0.01), but not teacher's ownership/wear of glasses.

Conclusions and Relevance:Though teachers had limited knowledge about children's vision, they influenced children's glasses acceptance.