Evaluation of the Parent Coordinator Program in Espírito Santo

Abstract

The literature shows that families’ participation in their children’s school life might have important effects on the students’ results. However, there is still little evidence of this effect in developing countries. In Brazil, a recent initiative to increase parental participation in the school environment and children learning process was the Parent Coordinator (CP) program, implemented between 2012 and 2013. This article assesses the impacts of the CP program adopted in the state of Espírito Santo on performance, frequency, and evasion using a panel of students from the 9th grade of elementary school to the 3rd year of high school and unique administrative data from 2011 to 2014. Based on a differences-in-differences strategy, the results indicate that the program increased student attendance and retention.

Keywords
Public policy evaluation; Parent involvement in school; Differences-in-differences; Brazil