Nudging Parents out the Door : The Impacts of Parental Encouragement on School Choice and Test Scores

Overview & Synopsis

This study evaluates a large-scale text message (SMS) outreach program to engage caregivers of students in private primary schools in Kenya. Using a two-stage randomization design, the study tested two types of weekly SMS messages: growth-mindset encouragement and personalized performance information. The findings show two main effects. First, outreach improved test scores by 0.07 standard deviations, with particularly strong gains among initially lower-performing students. This improvement generates 12 learning-adjusted years of schooling per US$100 spent—making it highly cost-effective relative to other education interventions. Second, outreach increased student exit rates by 4.7–5.0 percentage points, with effects concentrated among higher-achieving students (5.7 to 6.6 percentage points). The study developed a theoretical model of vertically differentiated schools where parental engagement affects both learning production and school choice. The model shows that when parents update their understanding of education production through engagement programs, they become more sensitive to perceived differences in school quality. This increased sensitivity can lead lower-quality schools to forgo implementing engagement programs—even when costless—as enhanced parental discernment accelerates student exits. The findings suggest a role for third-party provision of parent engagement programs in competitive education markets.