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Since the mid-20th century many OECD countries have discarded their previous selective schools systems, in which students early on were separated between academic and vocational tracks, in favor of more comprehensive schools. The effects of these reforms have generally been difficult to evaluate and their consequences for students' educational and labor market outcomes remain disputed. This paper evaluates the effects of the introduction of a more comprehensive upper secondary school system in Sweden in the 1990s. The reform reduced the differences between the academic and vocational educational tracks through prolonging and substantially increasing the academic content of all vocational tracks. The effects of this policy change are identified by exploiting a six year pilot scheme, which preceded the actual reform in some municipalities. The results show that the prolongation of the vocational tracks brought about an increased probability of dropping out among low performing students. Though one important motive behind the policy change was to enable all upper secondary school graduates to pursue a university degree, I find no effects on university enrolment or graduation. There are some indications, however, that attending the longer and more academic vocational track may have led to increased earnings in the long run.

Children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to perform significantly worse in school compared to children growing up under more favorable circumstances. We examine the impact of a three-year program ("Coaching for Teaching") targeted at ten poorly performing lower secondary schools in Sweden's most disadvantaged city districts. The aim of the intervention was to strengthen the teachers' professional development, e.g. through coaching and further training, and thereby enhance student performance. We use a difference-in-differences design and rich register data to estimate effects on several educational outcomes. Our results show a large and statistically significant positive impact on student performance on standardized tests in English language. Estimates for test results in math are also positive and large, but not statistically significant; the same applies to GPA and admission to upper secondary school. For test scores in Swedish language there is no indication of improvement. An analysis of a survey of pupils supports the idea that the teaching as well as the classroom climate improved due to the intervention. Taken together, the program seems to have generated rather promising results in the short run.