This paper presents evidence that students with special needs (SN) have no impact on the academic achievement of their peers in primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands. Administrative data are used on all Dutch students who are in their final grade of primary and secondary education in the years 2015–18 and student and school fixed effect models are estimated to find this null finding. To establish if the results truly represent a null finding a conceptual framework for learning from null results is applied. These results support that the inclusion on students without SN has no impact: Point estimates are precise and coefficients are generally insignificant and inconsistent in sign. Our results nuance recent empirical findings, and provide further evidence that, depending on the educational context, inclusive education can be implemented without harming the academic achievement of students without special needs.

Using discrete choice models, this paper investigates the determinants of secondary school choice in the city of Amsterdam. In this city, there are many schools to choose from and school choice is virtually unrestricted (no catchment areas, low or no tuition fees, short distances). We find that school choice is related to exam grades and the quality of incoming students, but not to progression in lower grades, no delay in higher grades, and a composite measure of quality published by a national newspaper. Furthermore, students appear to prefer schools that are close to their home and schools that many of their former classmates in primary school attend.