Follow the User Guide to start building your site.
NEW EdWorkingPapers
What can we learn from the research on public school reopening decisions in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Background: After the near-universal school closures in the United States at the start of the pandemic, lawmakers and educational leaders made plans for when and how to reopen schools for the 2020-21 school year. As school reopening plans and data sets aggregating reopening statuses became available, researchers moved quickly to assess how a range of public health, political,… more →
The Four Day Gamble: The Quasi-Experimental Effects of Four-Day School Week Adoption on Teacher, Principal, and Paraprofessional Staff Turnover and District Financial Outcomes
Four-day school week (4DSW) adoption is an increasingly popular policy, particularly for rural districts that are seeking to reduce educator turnover and district expenditures. Using a staggered treatment event study design, I am among the first to estimate the quasi-experimental effects of 4DSW adoption on teacher, principal, and paraprofessional staff turnover. Further, I provide a valuable… more →
The Politics of Commencement Speakers: Organizational Contexts of Speech on College Campuses, 1989–2024
Conflicts over the politics of speech have been a persistent challenge in U.S. higher education. Public narratives portray universities as antagonistic toward conservative speakers, yet empirical evidence remains limited. To address this gap, we analyze the political orientations of 1,875 commencement speakers at 52 universities between 1989 and 2024. Findings indicate a rise in liberal… more →
Bridging Literacy Gaps: The Impact of AI-Driven Personalised Learning on Reading Skills and Educational Equity
Persistent literacy skills deficits hinder educational attainment, limit labour market opportunities, and exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities. This paper evaluates the causal effect of an AI-driven Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) program implemented by the Government of Madrid, which features personalised, adaptive content and real-time feedback on students’ literacy proficiency.
Peer Effects of International Students in U.S. Higher Education
This study addresses an underexplored aspect of diversity at four-year research universities: the impact of international students on their domestic peers. I explore the peer effects of international students, assessing how their presence influences domestic students' academic outcomes. Using the classroom setting as a natural experimental framework, I estimate the impact of exposure to… more →
Puzzling Over Declining Academic Achievement
Many are concerned about the large decline in K-12 student achievement since 2019. And rightly so, given what it signals about student learning and later life outcomes. Less noted is the pre-pandemic sustained decline in student achievement growth that followed 30 years of increases. We examine the nature of achievement decline as measured by national and state NAEP scores to better understand… more →