Search and Filter
Susanna Loeb
The inequity of opt-in educational resources and an intervention to increase equitable access
Topics: Student LearningTags: Equity, Student supportsBillions of dollars are invested in opt-in educational resources to support struggling students. Yet, there is no guarantee these students will use these resources. We report results from a school system’s implementation of on-demand tutoring. The take up was low. At baseline, only 19% of… more →
Educator Attention: How computational tools can systematically identify the distribution of a key resource for students
Topics: MethodsEducator attention is critical for student success, yet how educators distribute their attention across students remains poorly understood due to data and methodological constraints. This study presents the first large-scale computational analysis of educator attention patterns… more →
Exploring the Potentials of Outcomes-Based Contracting: Findings from Initial Implementations
Outcomes-Based Contracting (OBC) ties vendor payments to performance metrics, aiming to enhance accountability in public education. This study examines its implementation in tutoring services through the Southern Education Foundation pilot program. Interviews with district leaders and vendors… more →
Effects of High-Impact Tutoring on Student Attendance: Evidence from the OSSE HIT Initiative in the District of Columbia
Topics: Student Well-BeingStudent absenteeism, which skyrocketed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, has negative consequences for student engagement and achievement. This study examines the impact of the High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) Initiative, implemented by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in… more →
The Effects of Virtual Tutoring on Young Readers: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial
Topics: Student LearningTags: TutoringIn-person tutoring has been shown to improve academic achievement. Though less well-researched, virtual tutoring has also shown a positive effect on achievement but has only been studied in grade five or above. We present findings from the first randomized controlled trial of virtual tutoring… more →
A Scalable Approach to High-Impact Tutoring for Young Readers: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Topics: Student LearningThis paper presents the results from a randomized controlled trial of Chapter One, an early elementary reading tutoring program that embeds part-time tutors into the classroom to provide short bursts of 1:1 instruction. Eligible kindergarten students were randomly assigned to receive… more →
Tutor CoPilot: A Human-AI Approach for Scaling Real-Time Expertise
Topics: Student LearningGenerative AI, particularly Language Models (LMs), has the potential to transform real-world domains with societal impact, particularly where access to experts is limited. For example, in education, training novice educators with expert guidance is important for effectiveness but expensive,… more →
When Money Matters Most: Unpacking the Effectiveness of School Spending
Tags: Equity, School districtsTargeted school funding is a potentially valuable policy lever to increase educational equality by race, ethnicity, and income, but it remains unclear how to target funds most effectively. We use a regression discontinuity approach to compare districts that narrowly passed or failed a school… more →
Priceless Benefits: Effects of School Spending on Child Mortality
Topics: Student Well-BeingThe academic and economic benefits of school spending are well-established, but focusing on these outcomes may underestimate the full social benefits of school spending. Recent increases in U.S. child mortality are driven by injuries and raise questions about what types of social investments… more →
Answering the call: How changes to the salience of job characteristics affects college students’ decisions
Tags: Professional developmentCollege students make job decisions without complete information. As a result, they may rely on misleading heuristics (“interesting jobs pay badly”) and pursue options misaligned with their goals. We test whether highlighting job characteristics changes decision making. We find increasing the… more →
Scaling High-impact tutoring: School Level Perspectives on Implementation Challenges and Strategies
Topics: Student LearningTags: Tutoring, LeadershipHigh-impact tutoring has emerged as a primary school district investment for addressing learning loss that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. While existing research shows that high-impact tutoring is effective for accelerating student learning, this study examined the school-level… more →
An Investigation of Head Start Preschool Children’s Executive Function, Early Literacy, and Numeracy Learning in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Topics: Student LearningThe COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on preschool children’s school readiness skills remains understudied. This research investigates Head Start preschool children’s early numeracy, literacy, and executive function outcomes during a pandemic-affected school year.
A Systematic Review of Research on Tutoring Implementation: Considerations when Undertaking Complex Instructional Supports for Students
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: TutoringTutoring has emerged as an especially promising strategy for supporting students academically. This study synthesizes 33 articles on the implementation of tutoring, defined as one-to-one or small-group instruction in which a human tutor supports students grades K-12 in an academic subject, to… more →
Engaging Girls in Math: The Unequal Effects of Text Messaging to Help Parents Support Early Math Development
Topics: Student LearningThis study assesses the effects of two text messaging programs for parents that aim to support the development of math skills in prekindergarten students. One program focuses purely on math, while the other takes an identical approach but focuses on a combination of math, literacy, and social-… more →
Navigating Remote Delivery of Assessments for Head Start Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Leiah Groom-Thomas, Monica G. Lee, Cate Smith Todd, Kathleen Lynch, Susanna Loeb, Scott McConnell, Lydia Carlis.Many preschool agencies nationwide continue to experience closures and/or conversions to virtual or hybrid instruction due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the importance of understanding young children’s learning and development during the COVID emergency, limited knowledge exists on… more →
Paraeducators: Growth, Diversity and a Dearth of Professional Supports
Paraeducators perform multiple roles in U.S. classrooms, including among others preparing classroom activities, working with students individually and in small groups, supporting individualized programming for students with disabilities, managing classroom behavior, and engaging with parents and… more →
High-Impact Tutoring: State of the Research and Priorities for Future Learning
Topics: Student LearningResearch consistently demonstrates that tutoring interventions have substantial positive effects on student learning. As a result, tutoring has emerged as a promising strategy for addressing COVID-related learning loss and affording greater educational opportunities for students living in… more →
Effectiveness Research for Teacher Education
Topics: MethodsTags: Professional developmentDespite calls for more evidence regarding the effectiveness of teacher education practices, causal research in the field remains rare. One reason is that we lack designs and measurement approaches that appropriately meet the challenges of causal inference in the context of teacher education… more →
More Than Shortages: The Unequal Distribution of Substitute Teaching
Classroom teachers in the US are absent on average approximately six percent of a school year. Despite the prevalence of teacher absences, surprisingly little research has assessed the key source of replacement instruction: substitute teachers. Using detailed administrative and survey data from… more →
Online Course-Taking and Expansion of Curricular Options in High Schools
Topics: Student LearningA common rationale for offering online courses in K-12 schools is that they allow students to take courses not offered at their schools; however, there has been little research on how online courses are used to expand curricular options when operating at scale. We assess the extent to which… more →