We analyze the impact of classroom peers' ability (measured by their individual fixed effects) on student achievement for all Florida public school students in grades 3-10 over a 6-year period. We control for both student and teacher fixed effects, thereby alleviating biases due to endogenous assignment of both peers and teachers. Under linear-in-means specifications, estimated peer effects are small to nonexistent, but we find some sizable and significant peer effects within nonlinear models. We also find that classroom peers, as compared with the broader group of grade-level peers at the same school, exert a greater influence on individual achievement gains.

We analyze the relationship between charter high school attendance and educational attainment in Florida and in Chicago. Controlling for observed student characteristics and test scores, we estimate that among students who attended a charter middle school, those who went on to attend a charter high school were 7–15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma than students who transitioned to a traditional public high school. Similarly, those attending a charter high school were 8–10 percentage points more likely to attend college. We find even larger effects when we treat high school choice as endogenous.