School district consolidation in North Carolina: Impacts on school composition and finance, crime outcomes, and educational attainment

Abstract

In this paper I analyze longitudinal data from North Carolina to study K-12 school district consolidations, or the merging of multiple districts into a single administrative unit. I use difference-in-differences and event study models to identify effects on theoretically related school- and district-level mechanisms as well as long-term youth outcomes. In contexts where districts consolidate, per-pupil expenditures on instruction and district support services decrease, and schools become more racially integrated. However, youth exposed to mergers are no more likely to be convicted of a crime in early adulthood than those unexposed. These null effects hold when looking at conviction rates by race and by type of crime and when analyzing another key outcome, educational attainment. My results thus provide causal evidence confirming prior research suggesting that consolidation may: 1) reduce the operational costs of schools without negatively affecting students, and 2) support efforts to address persistent racial isolation between schools.