Experimental Design Details
To rank schools, I use the average school-level Board Exam score for 2018, overall (covering English, Hindi, Mathematics, Sanskrit, Science, and Social Studies). More precisely, I calculate a school's weighted average, using information on the number of student in each of six performance ranges, on the test. If the number of schools for any district ranking is not divisible by three, I randomly assign the remaining schools. In this case, I assign these remaining schools "globally", i.e. across districts. As more than three schools need to be randomized across districts, I once more group schools with similar Board Exam scores together.
Finally, I repeat the above randomization strategy ten times, selecting the randomization with the smallest t-statistic, from comparisons across the treatment and control groups, for a set of select covariates (using Lasso, I select a set of covariates from India's District Information System for Education (DISE), which are predictive of school-level average pass rates for standardized exams, in grades 7 and 8. The selected covariates are: Number of students in grade 7 and 8; percentage female (students); percentage minority (students); percentage OBC (students); number of teachers; percentage female (teachers); percentage graduates (teachers); years in service (school); co-ed (school); school requires minor repairs; wall missing or damaged; ratio computers/students. and the average school-level Board Exam score for 2018.