•An additional year of schooling was induced by a large-scale compulsory schooling reform.•An additional year of schooling has zero detectable impact on later-life labor market outcomes, including earnings.•The additional schooling occurred in the lower-track schools within Britain’s elite education system.•Lower-track schools were characterized by, among other things, large classes and a focus on practical education. What is the causal effect of schooling on subsequent labor market outcomes? In this paper I contribute evidence on this question by re-examining a British compulsory schooling reform that yields large-scale and quasi-experimental variation in schooling. First, I note that this reform was introduced in 1947, when British students attended higher-track (for the “top” 20%) or lower-track (for the rest) secondary schools. The reform increased the minimum school leaving age from 14 to 15 and I show that the vast majority (over 95%) of affected students attended lower-track schools. Second, I show that the additional schooling induced by the reform had close to zero impact on a range of labor market outcomes. Third, I attribute these findings to the quality of these lower-track schools, which I argue was low along several dimensions.