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NEW EdWorkingPapers
Separation of Church and State Curricula? Public Standards, Private Values, and Textbook Content
Curricula are a critical site of cultural transmission, yet we know little about the values conveyed in textbooks across educational settings or the forces that shape them. We examine textbooks from Texas and California public schools and religious-private and home schools spanning 1980-2022, using computational and AI tools to measure presence and portrayal of people, topics, and values over… more →
Identifying Effective Attendance Strategies in Michigan
Chronic absenteeism remains a persistent challenge in Michigan and across the country in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic (Singer, 2024). While schools have expanded their efforts to improve attendance—implementing a wide range of practices, systems, and supports (Singer & Lenhoff, 2025)—there is still limited evidence about which of these strategies are most effective in… more →
High School Effects on Civic Engagement
Preparing young people for citizenship is a foundational purpose of public education, yet little is known about whether or how K-12 schools impact civic engagement. Using education, birth, and voting records for nine cohorts of students in Indiana, I estimate and assess the validity of high school effects on voting. School effects on voting are significant and practically meaningful: a one… more →
Beyond School Police Officers: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Exposure to a Fuller Range of School Security Personnel
Using data from the 2017–18 and 2020–21 Civil Rights Data Collection, we document dispari-ties in exposure to security personnel across US high schools and geographic levels. We dis-tinguish between law enforcement officers (LEOs) and school security guards (SSGs) to cap-ture variation in how security roles are deployed. Results show that Black and Hispanic stu-dents experience greater… more →
The Effects of High-Impact Tutoring on Student Attendance: Evidence from a State Initiative
Student absenteeism surged during and after the pandemic, harming engagement and achievement. We evaluate the impact of Washington DC’s High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) Initiative—designed to mitigate learning loss through targeted academic supports—on student absenteeism. Using daily attendance data and a within-student fixed effects design, we find that students were 1.2 percentage points less… more →
From Pilot to Policy: Experimental Evidence from Scaling Online Tutoring
We study a randomized controlled trial of an online mathematics tutoring program scaled from a successful pilot and implemented entirely by regional education authorities in Spain, using interim public-school teachers rather than specially recruited tutors. Assignment to tutoring increased end-of- year grades by 0.15σ and standardized math test scores by 0.11σ — approximately one-third of… more →
Policy and Practice Series
Webinar Series
Improving Student Attendance in the ICE Era
Join us for our next EdWorkingPapers Webinar, where we’ll bring timely, policy-relevant research to life through live conversation. In our spring session on Wednesday, June 17 at 1:30pm ET, researchers will describe the effects of immigration enforcement actions on student attendance and practical strategies schools are using to improve attendance and build trust with families.
When: Wednesday, June 17 from 1:30pm - 3:00pm ET
Where: Zoom (click here to register)
During this interactive session, you hear from:
Andrew Camp (Annenberg Institute at Brown University) and author team presenting "Immigration Enforcement Actions and Empty Desks: Persistent and Acute Attendance Effects"
Jeremy Singer (University of Michigan-Flint) and author team presenting "What are schools doing to improve attendance? Evidence from Michigan and Georgia"
Thomas Dee (Stanford University) moderating