Data Description "Who Benefits and Loses from Making Top Schools Less Selective? Evidence From a Large Change in Student Composition in Indonesian Schools"

We study an admission policy change that made public junior secondary schools less selective in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The primary admission criterion for these schools changed from an exam score ranking to a neighborhood-to-school distance ranking. The reform gave many low-achieving students access to top public schools, and displaced many high-achieving students to lower-quality private schools. We compare test score value-added of two otherwise similar student cohorts admitted before and after the policy change. We combine test score and survey data with administrative data from the Yogyakarta education agency on grade 6 exam scores, public school admissions, participation in a poverty assistance program called Kartu Menuju Sejahtera (KMS) and house location. The grade 6 exam is called Ujian Akhir Sekolah Daerah or UASDA. The SMERU Research Institute administered a student learning assessment in mathematics and Indonesian for this study in grades 7 and 8 in 2019 and 2020. The sample covers all 16 public junior secondary schools and 30 out of 41 private schools in Yogyakarta. We used stratified random sampling based on four geographical strata to create a sample representative of all private junior secondary schools in Yogyakarta. In addition to testing data, SMERU collected survey data from students, teachers, and school principals in 2019 and 2020.