Projects
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EsadeEcPol
2023
Since 2022 we have worked, collaborating with the Ministry of Universities in Spain, with the SIIU data base (the data base with all university students in Spain since 2013, with one million and thousands of students). In this project, we analyze, with Lucia Cobreros and Juanma Moreno, the evolution of the Selectividad grades in the last years and the impact that the different policies have had in the grades. We see that the grade increase is explained by inflationary reasons but also more competitiveness of students. We also observe that the 2017 reforms (which will reduce the optionality of the exam) and the 2020 reform (which will expand it again) are having an inflationary effect on the grades. Finally, we observe important differences in Secondary education grades by student characteristics. We propose 5 measures for the Selectivitat to become a fairer exam and to avoid the phenomena of grade inflation.
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EsadeEcPol
2023
Together with Alvaro Ferrer we elaborated an report abalyzing the use of administrative educational data is becoming more prevalant thanks to the better available administrative data and also to methodological advances in economics and social sciences. We see that Spain is losing the race in spite the efforts from the Ministry of Education and some regions in the last 15 days. We are propose 8 measures to pass from “islands” of innovation to the institutionalization of educational research, policies and educational practice based on the data provided by administrations. More than 40 of the best quantitative researchers (economists, sociologists, psychologists) in education in Spain gave support to the report initiative and its proposals.
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EsadeEcPol
2021–2022
This project was initially designed at the heat of the news coming at the end of the pandemic. With Angel Martinez and Marta Ferrero.
We analyze the increase in the school morning shift. From one side, using the Household Survey (ECV), we estimate the impact that the morning or continuous school day has on the labor supply of households, their earning and the impact by gender. The results will be very illustrative of how harmful this school model is for gender equality and household income. We also carried out a massive survey to all public educational schools in primary grades. We will obtained 2000 responses from teachers explaining the situation of the schools after the pandemic and the changes in the school day that were taking place. In May 2022, we published the report with EsadeEcPol, with a massive impact on public and social debate. It is the most relevant report of the Think Tank since its creation. It had 400 media coverage. The report opened newspaper editorials and television debates.
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EsadeEcPol
2021–2022
At the end of 2020, the first research on the negative impact of school closures on learning started to become public. Together with Claudia Hupkau and Toni Roldán we developed, with the NGO Empieza por Educar, what we called "Mentores": an intervention project to give support to students during the 2020-21 academic year. We proposed a program of individualized online tutoring in groups of 2 students for 8 weeks, with 3 sessions of 50 minutes per week, during the months of April and May 2021, for 378 students from 1st and 2nd grades of lower secondary in 18 schools of the most complex environments of Madrid and Catalonia. To do so, we designed the program with a randomized controlled trial (or RCT), which will consisted of randomly selecting an “intervention” group and another “control” group. The results were extraordinary. Mathematics results will significantly improve, and the probability of repeating a course was dramatically reduced. The project also increased the satisfaction, effort at school and aspirations of the students.
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EsadeEcPol
In 2021 we got in touch with Spanish regions that had carried out external educational evaluations after the school closures caused by COVID-19. The objective was to study and estimate the learning loss in Spain, as many other studies have been done for other countries. Finally, the Basque Country Government showed interest and provided us with the micro-data to conduct the study. We partnered with the COTEC Foundation to broaden the focus of the study and study the policies that the countries were developing to alleviate the learning loss after school closed. We generated a huge impact on public debate. In the academic study, signed with Andreu Arenas, we found a greater learning loss in mathematics which was mostly concentrated in public school. We also identified a strong relationship between learning loss and socioemotional deterioration. The study was cited by the jorunal Nature in the international meta-analysis that compiled data from all countries.
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EsadeEcPol
2021–2022
School segregation is a growing phenomenon in many countries around the world, also in Spain, especially in some of its regions and cities. In 2021 we published, together with Save the Children (and their education specialist Alvaro Ferrer a report analyzing the situation of school segregation in Spain (with the first analysis that was conducted for Primary grades, based on data from TIMSS) and made 8 proposals to reduce school segregation considerying the principle of freedom of choice of schools the families. It had great media attention and generated a deep transversal debate in sectors that normally do not have concerns about the issue. After this, we were be invited to present our work at the congresses of the main charter school associations and the Basque Country regional Parliament.