The developments brought about by ZEP status are evaluated on the basis of administrative data on secondary schools. Class sizes are very slowly falling. At the beginning of the 90s, the expenditure incurred in establishments classed as a ZEP were far from negligible, but mainly consisted of compensation credits to staff. In addition, the secondary schools concerned have seen the numbers of pupils fall, an increase in social homogeneity and a rise in the proportion of young teachers.

Despite the importance of the priority zones in the public debate, few studies try to measure in their evaluation of a pupil’s level the benefits of being in a ZEP compared to a non-priority zone. Furthermore, few studies evaluate the ZEP policy itself. The evaluation made here is a response to this limitation, monitoring the initial context through the use of an appropriate econometric method, the differences of differences. This then allows the average impact of the ZEP policy to be evaluated.

The first stage in this evaluation describes the changes affecting secondary schools when they are classed as a ZEP, i.e. determining the additional resources allocated to establishments and the impact of ZEP status on the composition of these secondary schools. As the ZEP policy cannot be boiled down to a simple variation in material resources, it is then a question of studying its overall impact on academic performances.

On the basis of data compiled on two sets of pupils who entered the first year in 1980 and 1989 and were monitored throughout their school life, it seems difficult to identify any significant effect by the ZEP programme on the success of pupils over the period 1982-1992.

Crest-Insee
Mrs. Corinne Prost, tel. +33 1 07 25 56 03

01/09/2005

Roland Bénabou, Francis Kramarz, Corinne Prost

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration

Education