endangered schools and thus block the entry of new schools. Therefore, the ensuing number of liquidations and community schools is endogenous and subject to the degree of competition.
This paper contributes to the literature on more autonomous schools too, although we do not study such schools themselves, but rather their spillover effects. Clark (2009) analyses British reform that allowed public high schools gain more autonomy. He finds no evidence of spillover effects of such schools on the schools in their neighborhood. Machin and Vernoit(2010) study the introduction of academy schools in UK that allowed schools to change their structure and become more autonomous. They report positive spillovers to neighboring schools. There is also related literature on the effects of decentralization in the US (Hoxby,2000;Rothstein,2007). This, however, provides choice between public school districts rather than between private and public schools, so this literature answers a different question and so far has produced mixed results. Similarly for the effects of private voucher-induced competition on public school performance in the USA (Hoxby, 2002;Figlio and Hart,2014;Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist, Hull and Pathak, 2014).
The paper is organised as follows. In Section 2 we describe the educational system in Poland with particular emphasis on community schools. In Section 3 we present empirical strategy and data. Section 4 contains the results and a series of robustness checks. In Section6 we discuss the results and conclude.
is not granted. The are no universal recruitment rules for non-local students. Each school’s policy is determined by school principal and a recruitment committee, which usually consists of selected teachers and school psychologist.
During the comprehensive education, students are examined by two standardized, externally graded and obligatory examinations: a low stake exam after elementary school (6th grade) and a high stake exam after gimnazjum (9th grade).2 The school averages from these exams are published in various unofficial school rankings. The only official measure of school quality is the school-level educational value added, but it is only available for gimnazja.3
Polish education system (and Polish administrative system in general) is considered to be very decentralized (Herbst, Herczyński and Levitas, 2009). This can be clearly seen in the distribution of power among different levels of government. All public elementary and secondary schools (gimnazja) are governed by local governments, and the role of central government is limited to education financing and imposing a core curriculum.
Local governments are free to open and close new schools, hire teachers, principals and redistribute money among schools.
There are clear economies of scale for school principals. All Polish public schools and some non-public schools are financed by the central government through subsidies. In theory their amount should be sufficient to cover all expenditures on education (excluding investments and pre-school education). In practice, however, it covers only around 50-70% of the costs (Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych,2011;Herbst et al.,2009) and the rest is covered by local governments. Since the governmental subsidy is tied with the pupil (the money goes with her), the amount of money which is given to a specific school depends on its enrollment. Furthermore, principals might gain more local political power from larger schools, which might be crucial in securing additional funds from the municipality government.
The teacher wages and general employment conditions are mostly determined by mu-nicipality governments (not by school principals) in compliance with the universal col-lective bargaining agreements (Karta Nauczyciela). Salary has to be at least as large as a minimum wage determined for each teacher’s rank inKarta Nauczyciela.4 In addition,
2The 9th grade exam serves as a basis for the admission into the higher secondary education (ISCED 3).
3It is widely available only since 2009. The Ministry of Education publishes also annual level-based rankings of the higher secondary school.
4In 2015 the minimum monthly gross wages ranged from 1513 PLN (340 EUR) to 3109 (700 EUR).
Additionally, local municipalities have to make sure that the average total gross salary for each tacher’s rank within municipality is at least as large as specified inKarta Nauczciela. In 2015 these
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teachers may receive extra salary for working over-time, monetary awards and other non-monetary benefits e.g. accommodation on school’s premises.
Because of fixed costs, a smaller school yields higher cost per student. Thus, greater cost-rationalisation creates incentive for local governments to merge schools and close them down. However, such decision is politically dangerous for a local government, therefore community schools appear as an attractive option. Such schools are led by non-public associations and are also financed from the non-public money, but the local government does not have to finance expenditures that exceed the amount of the subsidy. Community schools are more autonomous than public schools, but they have to follow a nation-wide curriculum. In particular, teachers, who are employed in regular public schools, sign the contract with their corresponding local government but the lower bound of their wages is set by the central authority (in agreement with the teachers’ unions). Moreover, they have several benefits e.g. the right to a year-long sick leave, which is exceptional among occupational groups financed from the central budget. Conversely, the specifics of the contract with the community school are negotiated at the school level and the wage is regulated by the free market. Since the wages are almost 80% of the educational spendings, community schools can manage the expenditures and the composition of a teaching body much more flexibly. It is also important that community schools have much better opportunities than public schools in terms of financing of new investments and operational costs from external funds, such as European Union funds. Finally, parental involvement in community schools is much higher than in public schools since community schools are often led by parents’ associations, so the principal - agent problem is less severe.
2.2 The amendment
Before 2009 a school could be taken over by the association only after it had been liquidated first i.e. a new school had to be set up. Liquidation was a complicated process and many activists and politicians saw the need for an improvement of this procedure. The possible solution was to allow a takeover without putting the school into liquidation. The first sign of possible change appeared in 2007 when PO (Civic Platform), a major political party supporting the idea of a community school, won the parliamentary election. Half a year later, around June 2008 the first official project of the amendment was created, and it immediately ignited public debates. Within the next
averages ranged from 2717 PLN (612 EUR) to 5000 PLN (1126 EUR).
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half a year the opposition was trying to block the reform by saying that it woulds lead to the privatisation of public education. The teacher unions in December 2008 organised the nation-wide campaign against schools’ handover “Do not let our school get ruined”.
After almost a year of ongoing debate, the amendment to the education act 1991 was finally introduced in March 2009. It allows the takeover of schools without putting them into liquidation5 by a natural or legal person other than a public authority, when the school’s enrolment is smaller than 70 pupils. This number has no specific meaning.
Figure1shows the distribution of school size in Poland; it is “smooth” around the value 70. The mean size is 192 and the median size is 125. The distribution is relatively dispersed, standard deviation is 172.
The main remaining problem with schools’ handover is that in order to obtain the governmental subsidy for the first four months of operation, a non-public association has to inform the authority about the planned take-over around 11 months before the first day of operation. If an association does not manage to do this, it is up to a local government to act in their stead. Although the amendment did not completely resolve the legal problems faced by associations and the new amendments are being discussed, 2009 amendment is considered a very important step toward the full introduction of community schools into the Polish education system.
There are currently 11398 public elementary schools and 949 schools run by asso-ciations. Not all such schools were a result of hand-overs, but this is now the main channel through which schools run by associations are established. In years 2008-2012 446 schools were handed over to non-public associations. Indeed, the amendment seems to have facilitated handovers, as they accelerated significantly after its introduction.
While in 2009 there were 30 handovers, in 2011 the number was 89 and in 2012 - 244.
In year 2010 only 19 handovers took place, but this is due to elections. Historical data (since 2002) confirm the hypothesis that election years are characterised by very small changes in the school network (Herczynski and Sobotka, 2013). Whereas before 2009 local governments relied mostly on liquidation, in year 2012 handovers became as common as liquidations. Usually elementary schools are transformed into community schools (84,9% of all handovers). Most handovers happen in eastern Poland which is less densely populated so that there is higher percentage of schools with enrolment less than 70 students.
5The old way of a hand-over through liquidation was left as an option, though.
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