Making the Varsity Cut: Who Plays High School Varsity Sports and Who Doesn’t

Paper finds no evidence that participation in high school sports has positive spillovers on wages, LFP or college attendance, highly correlated but its all self-selection. Core of paper, "...We examine the extent to which participation in high school athletics has beneficial effects on future education, labor market, and health outcomes. Due to the absence of plausible instruments in observational data, we use recently developed methods that relate selection on observables with selection on unobservables to estimate bounds on the causal effect of athletics participation. We analyze these effects in the US separately for men and women using three different nationally representative longitudinal data sets that each link high school athletics participation with later-life outcomes. We do not find consistent evidence of individual benefits reported in many previous studies - once we have accounted for selection, high school athletes are no more likely to attend college, earn higher wages, or participate in the labor force. However, we do find that men (but not women) who participated in high school athletics are more likely to exercise regularly as adults. Nevertheless, athletes are no less likely to be obese...."
Their evidence

Positive outcomes driven by selection,"...Athletic participation is strongly positively correlated with a number of outcomes—including high school graduation, college attendance, college graduation, wages, exercise habits, and absence of obesity—but we find that this correlation is almost completely due to selection. For most of the outcomes that we consider, we find that even if the correlation between athletic participation and unobservable characteristics is a small fraction of the correlation between athletic participation and observable characteristics, then there is no effect of sports.Across several different outcomes and different samples, we find no consistent benefit from high school sports. However, in a few cases that we discuss below, we do find statistically significant effects from sports participation that are arguably causal...."

“…In Table 1 and Table 2 we present basic descriptive statistics of athletes and non-athletes for men and women, respectively. Each table contains a list of outcomes and control variables from each survey, along with the respective sample means for non-athletes, athletes, and the full sample. We denote with an asterisk sample means of athletes that are statistically different from non-athletes at the 5% level. The descriptive statistics provide a high-level understanding of how selection on observables and unobservables might mitigate the effects of sports. We divide the variables into three categories: background characteristics, school characteristics, and outcomes…Athletes tend to have higher cognitive test scores, be disproportionately white, have parents with higher levels of education, be more likely to co-reside with parents, and come from homes with higher incomes. In short, our basic summary statistics reveal that athletes are strongly positively selected on personal and family background traits….On the school side, athletes are less likely to be absent from school, more likely to be found in private schools and schools with smaller student bodies, more likely to be found in rural schools, and more likely to attend schools that are more racially segregated. These results hold for both men and women, and are in line with existing literature and theory. Namely, overwhelmingly white, private, and rural schools provide more opportunities for student athletes, for whatever reason. Possible explanations include differences in school funding, or that it is statistically easier to make the team at a school with a smaller student body….In addition to observing that athletes have different background and school contexts, we also observe that athletes have very different adult outcomes. They attain higher levels of education, measured either by grades completed or degrees attained. Athletes also earn more as adults: about 15 percent higher wages for men, and about 12 percent higher wages for women. Athletes are much more likely to report exercising regularly. Male athletes are neither more nor less likely to be obese as adults, while female athletes are much less likely to be obese. Athletes of both genders report a higher frequency of alcohol abuse as adults….The results in Tables 1 and 2 are striking in that the different surveys exhibit not only the same sign of sports effects, but also many of the same magnitudes, in spite of the fact that athletic participation is measured quite differently across the three surveys….”
Educational outcomes

“….Tables 4 and 5 contain estimates of α, the effect of sports participation on educational outcomes, from all three surveys, respectively for men and women. The first two rows of the table report OLS estimates, while the remaining rows report RCR estimates. Consistent with the large body of prior research on the topic, as well as the evidence reported in Tables 1 and 2, when we assume that students are randomly assigned to be athletes, we find economically large and statistically significant effects of sports participation on high school graduation, college attendance, and college graduation. Furthermore, the inclusion of explanatory variables dramatically reduces the size of the estimated effect, by more than half in some cases. The estimated effects are slightly smaller for women, but the general pattern is very similar.....thus, the correlation between sports participation and college graduation propensity for men in the NELS:88 is robust to a large amount of selection on unobservables, although we would not reject a null hypothesis of a null effect if λ = 1. On the other hand, for women we find little evidence to support a causal effect of sports participation on the educational outcomes that we examine. For all three of these samples, even if the correlation with the unobservables is only half as much as the correlation with the observables, there is no beneficial effect of sports participation….”

“…Tables 8 and 9 contain estimates for our measures of health and risky behaviors: regular exercise, obesity, and alcohol abuse. In the case of regular exercise, both surveys indicate that male athletes are more likely to participate in regular adult exercise. Interestingly, after controlling for observables, the athlete/non-athlete difference does not change much (and actually increases in the Add Health sample). This result is graphically depicted in Figure 1 (b) for the NELS:88….”

Their takeaway, "...Our largely null results inform the policy debate on high school sports by providing evidence against claims that sports foster skills that improve educational or labor market outcomes. However, despite having very little human capital value, sports may still have a place in high school as a social or cultural activity. We generally confirm the assertion of sports commentator Heywood Hale Broun, who said, “Sports reveals character, it doesn’t build it”

Michael Ransom and Tyler Ransom, "Do High School Sports Build or Reveal Character?Institute of Labor Economics, October 2017, https://docs.iza.org/dp11110.pdf

"... Stuyvesant high school... Of the 895 places available last year, only seven (or 0.8%) were offered to black pupils (in a district where 25% of pupils are black). Asian-Americans do far better in the entrance exam and are 73% of the school population—or four times their share of the pupil population in the district...."

Economist Staff, "A battle over gifted education is brewing in America,"The Economist, January 9, 2020, https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/01/09/a-battle-over-gifted-education-is-brewing-in-america

"...This process, whether by happenstance or design, yields a parent body comprised largely of the most motivated parents and those with the organizational skills and resources to meet Success Academy’s high bar for parental engagement. This sets the stage to strive for—and mostly achieve—consistent and high levels of academic achievement “at scale” among low-income children of color, who would otherwise be lost to the dull hum of mediocrity in zoned neighborhood schools...."

Robert Pondiscio, "The Secret of a Charter School’s Success? Parents,"Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-of-a-charter-schools-success-parents-11567777805

The Secret of a Charter School’s Success? Parents

Charter schools are a boutique phenomenon in American education, educating a mere 6% of U.S. school children. But they attract a disproportionate amount of attention—and controversy—because of their unique place in our education ecosystem. Public, tuition-free schools open to all students, but operated independently of school districts, they offer a Rorschach test revealing how one feels about U.S. public education at large. They can be perceived either as engines of innovation and an indispensable means to rescue children from failing neighborhood schools, or as an existential threat draining away resources—both money and engaged families—from traditional public schools.

Collectively, charter schools educate 3.2 million children in 7,000 schools in 43 states and the District of Columbia. None are more polarizing than New York City’s network of about 50 Success Academy schools, which serve 17,000 students—94% of whom are from minority backgrounds—under their visionary and lightning-rod leader, Eva Moskowitz. Most are less than a decade old, and all of them are exceptionally high performing. In a city where less than 40% of black and Hispanic children test at proficiency for reading or math, 90% of Success Academy’s students of color passed the most recent state reading test. Virtually all of them—over 98%—did so in math.

Test results should not be the sole measure of school quality, but they’re how we often keep score. By that standard, there’s no such thing as a bad Success Academy school. Its very “worst” campus saw 85% of its students pass last year’s reading test, and in math the worst was 92%—a level of quality and consistency unmatched by any other large charter school network in the U.S.

Success Academy does something else that’s unique and mostly unnoticed, but it creates the conditions that make these results possible. By law, oversubscribed charter schools must admit students by lottery. Success Academy has roughly six applicants for every seat, which gives the appearance of a randomly selected student body. But it exercises unusual influence over which students end up actually enrolling. In the end, the chances of an applicant being offered a seat appear to be closer to 50/50 than one-in-six.

Parents who win the lottery, and even those whose children are only on the wait list, must attend a series of mandatory meetings and complete various administrative steps for their applications to remain “active” between the April lottery and the start of school in August. Those who falter fall away.

At every step, school leaders aggressively preach to prospective parents about their no-nonsense culture and the expectation that parents come with eyes wide open, fully committed to Success Academy’s program and policies, including strict behavior codes, school uniform compliance, supervising homework, reading with children every night and recording what’s read in a log. Parents are warned repeatedly in unsparing language, “Success Academy may not be for you.” Significantly, the schools offer no transportation or after-school programs, a potential deal breaker for working single parents or those without the support network to pick up and drop off their children every day.

This process, whether by happenstance or design, yields a parent body comprised largely of the most motivated parents and those with the organizational skills and resources to meet Success Academy’s high bar for parental engagement. This sets the stage to strive for—and mostly achieve—consistent and high levels of academic achievement “at scale” among low-income children of color, who would otherwise be lost to the dull hum of mediocrity in zoned neighborhood schools.

To deny low-income families of color the ability to self-select into safe and well-run schools with high expectations is to impose mediocrity on them.

This seems unfair—except for the fact that the ability to self-select into a well-run, high-performing school is unremarkable and unquestioned among affluent Americans. When well-off parents pay for their children to attend a private or religious school, or when they move into high-income ZIP codes where inflated home prices and eye-popping property taxes are de facto tuition for excellent “public” schools, they are making the same decision as the low-income parents drawn to Success Academy. Both groups are voting with their feet and committing their own resources—money or time—to ensure that their children go to school with the children of similarly engaged and motivated parents.

To deny low-income families of color the ability to self-select into safe and well-run schools with high expectations is to impose mediocrity on them, ostensibly for the public good. It is a burden that no affluent family is asked or expected to bear. Ms. Moskowitz insists that even if she were allowed to, she would not screen and handpick applicants instead of admitting families by lottery. “I wouldn’t do it,” she told me, “because I don’t think I could tell who they are.” Perhaps not, but she has created a mechanism for those families to identify themselves.

Ms. Moskowitz’s many critics will look at the small but non-trivial hurdles parents must clear as proof that she is not running great schools, merely a sorting mechanism. But this ignores what’s most remarkable about Success Academy: Its schools don’t just match those of affluent suburban districts but easily outperform them. Working with self-selected families under careful conditions, Ms. Moskowitz hasn’t merely closed the achievement gap. She has reversed it.

The politics of education reform require that we be less than candid about all of this self-sorting, but the upshot for rich and poor alike is clear: School culture and parent buy-in matter. The brand of education pioneered by Success Academy may indeed be “not for everyone,” but its schools are well run, not the joyless and militaristic hothouses critics imagine. They serve much the same role as Catholic schools did for previous generations of striving New Yorkers. Success Academy suggests the upper limits of what is possible when a critical mass of active and engaged families of color, who happen to be poor, are given permission to exercise the same degree of choice as affluent families.

But this all must be done sotto voce. One former Success Academy school leader whom I interviewed struck a philosophical tone. “Is it really such a bad thing that this is basically an elite private school that admits by lottery?” he asked. “It’s the first time folks in the inner city have had that chance.”

It’s not a bad thing. The disparity of opportunity afforded to rich and poor Americans is what must change. The privileged are unfettered in their pursuit of an excellent education for their children; the rest get “equity.” Worse, we are forced to be dishonest in arguments both for and against charter schools, resorting to aspirational, politically pleasing narratives about what it takes to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. It’s time to stop airbrushing parents out of the picture and to acknowledge the sometimes uncomfortable truth that their role is indispensable.