The Annenberg Institute at Brown University, in partnership with the SCALE Initiative at Stanford University, offers this national working paper series to provide open access to high-quality papers from multiple disciplines and from multiple universities and research organizations on a wide variety of topics related to education. EdWorkingPapers focuses particularly on research with strong implications for education policy. EdWorkingPapers circulates papers prior to publication for comment and discussion; these papers have not gone through a peer review processes.
NEW EdWorkingPapers
Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Tutoring Format and Tutors: Findings from an Early Literacy Tutoring Program
This study presents the first within-program, within-tutor experimental evidence comparing the impact of in-person versus remote tutoring. Based on results from an early literacy tutoring initiative delivered by university students over Summer 2023, we find no statistically significant differences in students’ literacy outcomes by instructional modality. However, students receiving in-person… more →
Expanding Access to Highly Effective Educators for All Students: A Review of Recent Evidence
We have long known that some teachers are much more effective than others. Highly effective teachers and their students thrive in ways that have been hard to replicate on a large and consistent scale. In this paper, we read across studies to identify actionable lessons about what it will take to staff all schools with highly effective educators and to surface directions that are particularly… more →
Education Governance and Race: An Analysis of School Board Discourse Using Large Language Models
Despite growing attention to school boards, it is unclear whether they primarily operate as bureaucratic forums, policy-making bodies, or arenas for contentious debate—particularly on issues of race. Recent controversies suggest increasing public engagement and conflict, but little evidence documents how often questions of race arise in board deliberations. This study analyzes over 40,000… more →
Item-Level Heterogeneity in Value Added Models: Implications for Reliability, Cross-Study Comparability, and Effect Sizes
Value added models (VAMs) attempt to estimate the causal effects of teachers and schools on student test scores. We apply Generalizability Theory to show how estimated VA effects depend upon the selection of test items. Standard VAMs estimate causal effects on the items that are included on the test. Generalizability demands consideration of how estimates would differ had the test included… more →
Weighing Risks: How Families of Disabled Children Made School Choices During the Pandemic
In this paper, we show how positionality shapes caregivers’ decisions about children’s schooling, by expanding on research on Black families’ educational decision-making (Cooper, 2025; Posey-Maddox et al., 2021) to examine the positions from which families of disabled and multiply-marginalized children make educational choices. The families of disabled children in our sample made holistic,… more →
Making the Case? Unpacking Family Case Management Effects and School Effects in Neighborhood Redevelopment Initiatives
Mixed-income initiatives provide critical investments in neighborhoods, including investments to improve schools, and provide case management and family support services to low-income families. The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) is one of the largest and most comprehensive mixed-income neighborhood redevelopment initiatives to date; however, research has yet to examine the CNI’s impacts… more →