Martin R. West
Kumon In: The Recent, Rapid Rise of Private Tutoring Centers
Topics: Student LearningThe increasing prevalence of private tutoring has received minimal scholarly attention in the United States. We use over 25 years of geocoded data on the universe of U.S. private tutoring centers to estimate the size and growth of this industry and to identify predictors of tutoring center… more →
Public Opinion, Attitude Stability, and Education Policy
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags:Do Americans hold a consistent set of opinions about their public schools and how to improve them? From 2013 to 2018, over 5,000 unique respondents participated in more than one consecutive iteration of the annual, nationally representative Education Next poll, offering an opportunity to examine… more →
Is Engaging Online Learning Possible? A Study of an Innovative National Virtual Summer Program
We study an early effort amid the Covid-19 pandemic to develop new approaches to virtually serving students, supporting teachers, and promoting equity. This five-week, largely synchronous, summer program served 11,769 rising 4th-9thgraders. “Mentor teachers” provided PD and videos of themselves… more →
Status, Growth, and Perceptions of School Quality
Tags: School districtsStates and districts are increasingly incorporating measures of achievement growth into their school accountability systems, but there is little research on how these changes affect the public’s perceptions of school quality. We conduct a nationally representative online survey experiment to… more →
Can Information Widen Socioeconomic Gaps in Postsecondary Aspirations? How College Costs and Returns Affect Parents’ Preferences for their Children
To estimate whether information can close socioeconomic gaps in parents’ aspirations for their child’s postsecondary education, we administer a four-armed survey experiment to a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents. After respondents estimate costs of and returns to further education… more →
Federalism, Race, and the Politics of Turnaround: U.S. Public Opinion on Improving Low-Performing Schools and Districts
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: School reformPublic support for school improvement policies can increase the success and durability of those reforms. However, little is known about public views on turnaround. We deployed questions and embedded experiments in a nationally representative 2017 survey (n=4,214) to uncover opinions regarding (a… more →