Providing Performance Information in Education: An Experimental Evaluation in Colombia

We conducted a randomized controlled trial of an information intervention to evaluate the effects of providing information to families on their children's reading and math achievement in a mid-size city in Colombia. Most families are poorly informed about their children's performance, but our information intervention closes the gap between beliefs and performance and induces some behavioral response among parents in the treatment group. We find positive impacts on student achievement of 0.09 SD to 0.10 SD in the first two semesters after treatment, followed by fadeout in year two. This overall pattern is driven by large gains—around 0.28 SD—and then similarly complete fadeout for students with low baseline test scores.