EdWorkingPapers
HBCU Enrollment and Longer-Term Outcomes
Using data from nearly 1.2 million Black SAT takers, we estimate the impacts of initially enrolling in an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) on educational, economic, and financial outcomes. We control for the college application portfolio and compare students with similar portfolios and levels of interest in HBCUs and non-HBCUs who ultimately make divergent enrollment decisions -… more →
Rethinking Principal Effects on Student Outcomes
School principals are viewed as critical actors to improve student outcomes, but there remain important methodological questions about how to measure principals’ effects. We propose a framework for measuring principals’ contributions to student outcomes and apply it empirically using data from Tennessee, New York City, and Oregon. As commonly implemented, value-added models misattribute to… more →
The Effects of Economic Conditions on the Labor Market for Teachers
Prior research has found that economic downturns have positive effects on new teacher quality, but has not been able to determine the extent to which this relationship arises from a supply response (increased quantity or positive selection of teaching candidates) vs. a demand response (selection in hiring enabled by falling demand). In this paper, I use longitudinal data on students and teachers… more →
Assessing the Benefits of Education in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Pre-K Lottery in Georgia
Numerous studies have demonstrated a strong link between participation in pre-K programs and both short-term student achievement and positive later-life outcomes. Existing evidence primarily stems from experimental studies of small-scale, high-quality programs conducted in the 1960s and 1970s and analyses of the federal Head Start program. Meanwhile, evidence on state-funded pre-K… more →
The Role and Influence of Exclusively Online Degree Programs in Higher Education
This study leverages national data and a quasi-experimental design to examine the influence of enrolling in an exclusively online degree program on students’ likelihood of completing their degree. We find that enrolling in an exclusively online degree program had a negative influence on students’ likelihood of completing their bachelor’s degree or any degree when compared to their otherwise-… more →
Early Algebra Affects Peer Composition
Although existing research suggests that students benefit on a range of outcomes when they enroll in early algebra classes, policy efforts that accelerate algebra enrollment for large numbers of students often have negative effects. Explanations for this apparent contradiction often emphasize the potential role of teacher and peer effects, which could create positive effects for individual… more →
Beyond Prescriptive Reforms: An Examination of North Carolina’s Flexible School Restart Program
While multiple studies have examined the impact of school turnaround, less is known about reforms under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). To advance this literature, we examine North Carolina’s Restart (NCR) model. NCR aligns with ESSA by giving school leaders increased flexibility. Also, NCR differs from previous turnaround models by repackaging a traditionally sanction-based approach to… more →
The long-term distributional impacts of a full-year interleaving math program in Nigeria
This study reports the findings from a year-long randomized evaluation assessing the impact of assigning 62 classrooms in Nigeria to receive either blocked or interleaved math problem sets. Blocked practice sessions focused on a single skill at a time. Interleaved problem sets alternated between different skills within a practice session. On tests of short-term retention, interleaved practice… more →
Financial Deregulation, School Finance, and Student Achievement
This paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an increase in per-pupil total revenue and expenditure. The rise in revenue is primarily attributed to… more →
How Free Market Logic Fails in Schooling— and What It Means for the Role of Government
Market-based policies, especially school vouchers, are expanding rapidly and shifting students out of traditional public schools. This essay broadens, deepens, and updates prior critiques of the free market logic in five ways. First, while prior articles have pointed to some of the conditions necessary for efficient market functioning, I provide a more comprehensive list. Second, with an up-to-… more →
Are Teachers Absent More? Examining Differences in Absence Between K-12 Teachers and Other College-Educated Workers
While it is commonly believed that teachers take more absences than other professionals, few empirical studies have systematically investigated the prevalence of teacher absences in the US. This study documents the level of teacher absences and compares it with other college-educated workers. Using the Monthly Current Population Survey between the 1995 and 2019 school years, we conduct… more →
Noncognitive Factors and Student Long-Run Success: Comparing the Predictive Validity of Observable Academic Behaviors and Social-Emotional Skills
Noncognitive constructs such as self-e cacy, social awareness, and academic engagement are widely acknowledged as critical components of human capital, but systematic data collection on such skills in school systems is complicated by conceptual ambiguities, measurement challenges and resource constraints. This study addresses this issue by comparing the predictive validity of two most widely used… more →
The Opportunity Costs of Career and Technical Education: Coursetaking Tradeoffs for High School CTE Students
Career and Technical Education (CTE) has long played a substantial, though controversial, role within America’s public schools. While supporters argue that CTE may increase student engagement and prepare students for success in the workforce, detractors caution that CTE may inhibit students’ access to the rigorous academic coursework needed for college and high-status careers. As students’ time… more →
Weighting for Progressivity? An Analysis of Implicit Tradeoffs Associated with Weighted Student Funding in Tennessee
We study the progressivity of state funding of school districts under Tennessee’s weighted student funding formula. We propose a simple definition of progressivity based on the difference in exposure to district per-pupil funding between poor and non-poor students. The realized progressivity of district funding in Tennessee is much smaller—only about 17 percent as large—as the formula weights… more →
Estimating Learning When Test Scores Are Missing: The Problem and Two Solutions
Longitudinal studies can produce biased estimates of learning if children miss tests. In an application to summer learning, we illustrate how missing test scores can create an illusion of large summer learning gaps when true gaps are close to zero. We demonstrate two methods that reduce bias by exploiting the correlations between missing and observed scores on tests taken by the same child at… more →
Unintended Consequences of Youth Entrepreneurship Programs: Experimental Evidence from Rwanda
The persistently high employment share of the informal sector makes entrepreneurship a necessity for youth in many developing countries. We exploit exogenous variation in the implementation of Rwanda’s entrepreneurship education reform in secondary schools to evaluate its effect on student economic outcomes up to three years after graduation. Using a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated a… more →
Is Reputational Pressure Enough to Create Competitive School Choice Effects? Evidence from Seoul’s School Choice Policy
During the pandemic, a number of states instituted hold-harmless funding policies to protect school district financially from declining enrollments (Center for Public Education, 2021). In addition, some school choice policies have protected traditional public schools financially from declining enrollments. Together, these policies raise the question of whether competitive effects can exist in a… more →
Different methods for assessing pre-service teachers’ instruction: Why measures matter
Teacher preparation programs are increasingly expected to use data on pre-service teacher (PST) skills to drive program improvement and provide targeted supports. Observational ratings are especially vital, but also prone to measurement issues. Scores may be influenced by factors unrelated to PSTs’ instructional skills, including rater standards and mentor teachers’ skills. Yet we know little… more →
Are Friends of Schools the Enemies of Equity? The Interplay of Public School Funding Policies and Private External Fundraising
School districts across the U.S. have adopted funding policies designed to distribute resources more equitably across schools. However, schools are also increasing external fundraising efforts to supplement district budget allocations. We document the interaction between funding policies and fundraising efforts in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We find that adoption of a weighted-student funding… more →
Politics and Children’s Books: Evidence from School Library Collections
The recent spike in book challenges has put school libraries at the center of heated political debates. I investigate the relationship between local politics and school library collections using data on books with controversial content in 6,631 public school libraries. Libraries in conservative areas have fewer titles with LGBTQ+, race/racism, or abortion content and more Christian fiction and… more →
Teacher Preparation, Classroom Structure, and Learning Outcomes for Students with Disabilities
Ample research investigates returns to teacher preparation and other instructional inputs for the general student population, yet evidence is lacking for students with disabilities (SWDs). This study uses North Carolina data to estimate achievement returns to teacher preparation by classroom type and level of classroom support for SWDs. I find that SWDs perform better when placed in inclusive… more →
A Profile of Career and Technical Education Teachers in the 21st Century
Though Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers are pivotal to students’ academic and career outcomes, research describing CTE teachers remains scant. In this study, we use nationally-representative data to describe changes in the nation’s CTE teacher workforce during a period of significant policy changes. Today’s CTE teachers are more frequently credentialed and more racially and… more →
Who becomes a teacher when entry requirements are reduced? An analysis of emergency licenses in Massachusetts
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted teacher candidates’ capacity to complete licensure requirements. In response, many states temporarily reduced professional entry requirements to prevent a pandemic-induced teacher shortage. Using mixed methods, we examine the role of the emergency teaching license in Massachusetts, which provided an opportunity for individuals to enter the public school teacher… more →
(Pay)Walled Gardens: Status and Racialized Discourse Among Authors of Student Loan News Articles
News media plays a crucial role in the student loan policy ecosystem by influencing how policymakers and the public understand the “problem” of student loans. Prior research emphasizes the causal impact of the media on the social construction of policy issues and the lack of knowledge about the authors of news articles. Theory also suggests that it is more difficult for new information to reach… more →
The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency
In response to widening achievement gaps and increased demand for post-secondary education, local and federal governments across the US have enacted policies that have boosted high school graduation rates without an equivalent rise in student achievement, suggesting a decline in academic standards. To the extent that academic standards can shape effort decisions, these trends can have important… more →
Explaining the Productivity Paradox: Experimental Evidence from Educational Technology
Explaining the productivity paradox—the phenomenon where an introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) does not lead to improvements in labor productivity—is difficult, as changes in technology often coincide with adjustments to working hours and substitution of labor. I conduct a cluster-randomized trial in India to investigate the effects of a program that provides teachers… more →
Can Patience Account for Subnational Differences in Student Achievement? Regional Analysis with Facebook Interests
Decisions to invest in human capital depend on people’s time preferences. We show that differences in patience are closely related to substantial subnational differences in educational achievement, leading to new perspectives on longstanding within-country disparities. We use social-media data – Facebook interests – to construct novel regional measures of patience within Italy and the United… more →
When Pell Today Doesn’t Mean Pell Tomorrow: Evaluating Aid Programs With Dynamic Eligibility
Generally, need-based financial aid improves students’ academic outcomes. However, the largest source of need-based grant aid in the United States, the Federal Pell Grant Program (Pell), has a mixed evaluation record. We assess the minimum Pell Grant in a regression discontinuity framework, using Kentucky administrative data. We focus on whether and how year-to-year changes in aid eligibility and… more →
Clearing Up Transfer Admissions Standards: Impact on Access and Outcomes
Students’ college choices can affect their chances of earning a degree, but many lack the support to navigate the opaque college application and admissions process. This paper evaluates whether guaranteeing four-year college admissions based on transparent academic standards affected community college students’ enrollment choices and graduation rates. Guaranteed admissions increased high-GPA… more →
Teacher Shortages: A Framework for Understanding and Predicting Vacancies
We develop a unifying conceptual framework for understanding and predicting teacher shortages at the state, region, district, and school levels. We then generate and test hypotheses about geographic and subject variation in teacher shortages using data on unfilled teaching positions in Tennessee during the fall of 2019. We find that teacher staffing challenges are highly localized, causing… more →
The Importance of a Helping Hand in Education and in Life
This paper discusses the importance of incorporating personal assistance into interventions aimed at improving long-term education and labor market success. While existing research demonstrates the cost-effectiveness of low-touch behavioral nudges, this paper argues that the dynamic nature of human capital accumulation requires sustained habits over time. To foster better habits, social… more →
Improving elementary school students’ reading comprehension through content-rich literacy curriculum: The effect of structured read-aloud supplements on measures of reading comprehension transfer
This study contributes to the science of teaching reading by illustrating how a ubiquitous classroom practice – read alouds – can be enhanced by fostering teacher language practices that support students’ ability to read for understanding. This experimental study examines whether and to what extent providing structured teacher read aloud supplements in a social studies read aloud can allow… more →
“Refining” Our Understanding of Early Career Teacher Skill Development: Evidence From Classroom Observations
Novice teachers improve substantially in their first years on the job, but we know remarkably little about the nature of this skill development. Using data from Tennessee, we leverage a feature of the classroom observation protocol that asks school administrators to identify an item on which the teacher should focus their improvement efforts. This “area of refinement” overcomes a key measurement… more →
Inequality in the Classroom: Electoral Incentives and the Distribution of Local Education Spending
Locally-elected school boards have wide discretion over allocating money among the schools in their district, yet we know relatively little about how they decide “which schools get what.” I argue that electoral incentives are one factor that can influence the distribution of resources: board members will direct spending toward schools located in neighborhoods of their district where spending will… more →
Implementation Matters: Generalizing Treatment Effects in Education
Targeted instruction is one of the most effective educational interventions in low- and middle-income countries, yet reported impacts vary by an order of magnitude. We study this variation by aggregating evidence from prior randomized trials across five contexts, and use the results to inform a new randomized trial. We find two factors explain most of the heterogeneity in effects across contexts… more →
Strategic Disclosure of Test Scores: Evidence from US College Admissions
The impact of test-optional college admissions policies depends on whether applicants act strategically in disclosing test scores. We analyze individual applicants’ standardized test scores and disclosure behavior to 50 major US colleges for entry in fall 2021, when Covid-19 prompted widespread adoption of test-optional policies. Applicants withheld low scores and disclosed high scores, including… more →
Who Wants To Say “Gay?” Public Opinion About LGBT Issues in the Curriculum
Public schools are currently a source of major political conflict, specifically with regard to issues related to LGBT representation in the curriculum. We report on a large nationally representative survey of American households focusing on their views on what LGBT topics are and should be taught, and what LGBT-themed books should be assigned and available. We report results overall and broken… more →
Rural Early Childhood Programs & School Readiness: An Evaluation of the Early Steps to School Success Program
Prior research has clearly established the substantial expected payoffs to investments in early childhood education. However, the ability to deliver early childhood programs differs across communities with access to high quality programing especially hard to establish in rural communities. We study one program, Early Steps to School Success, to understand whether the provision of home visiting… more →
How to “QuantCrit:” Practices and Questions for Education Data Researchers and Users
‘QuantCrit’ (Quantitative Critical Race Theory) is a rapidly developing approach that seeks to challenge and improve the use of statistical data in social research by applying the insights of Critical Race Theory. As originally formulated, QuantCrit rests on five principles; 1) the centrality of racism; 2) numbers are not neutral; 3) categories are not natural; 4) voice and insight (data cannot ‘… more →
Out-of-State Enrollment, Financial Aid and Academic Outcomes: Evidence from Wisconsin
Scholars disagree about the effect out-of-state university students have on potential in-state students. Despite paying a premium to attend state universities, researchers argue that out-of-state students may come at a cost to in-state students by negatively affecting academic quality or by crowding out in-state students. To study this relationship, we examine the effect of a 2016 policy at a… more →
The Effect of Universal Free School Meals on Child BMI
We estimate the effect of universal free school meal access through the Community Eligibility Program (CEP) on child BMI. Through the CEP, schools with high percentages of students qualified for free or reduced-priced meals can offer freebreakfast and lunchto all students. With administrative data from a large school district in Georgia, we use student-level BMI measures from the FitnessGram to… more →
Conditions under which college students can be responsive to nudging
College success requires students to engage with their institution academically and administratively. Missteps with required administrative processes can threaten student persistence and success. Through two experimental studies, we assessed the effectiveness of an artificially intelligent text-based chatbot that provided proactive outreach and support to college students to navigate… more →
The impact of federal administrative burdens on college enrollment
Government programs impose eligibility requirements to balance the goals of improving welfare while minimizing waste. We study the impact of eligibility monitoring in the context of Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) submissions, where students may be subject to “verification” requirements that require them to confirm the accuracy of the data. Using a matching on observables… more →
Can Public School Buses Help Solve the Urban Congestion Problem?
Congestion is a persistent and expensive problem, costing the nation collectively over $300 billion each year. Cities have generally attempted to address congestion using an unoriginal set of expensive strategies, like building new roads or expanding public transit, and many cities are considering implementing congestion pricing. Expanding school bus service may be a palatable solution because it… more →
OK Boomer: Generational Differences in Teacher Quality
We document that recent generations of elementary school teachers are significantly more effective in raising student test scores than those from earlier generations. Measuring teachers’ value-added for Black and white students separately, the improvements in teaching for Black students are significantly larger than those seen for white students. The race-specific improvements in teacher quality… more →
Toward An Economic Reformulation of Public Pension Funding Policy
We propose an economic reformulation of contribution policy integrating: (1) formalization of sustainability as the steady-state contribution rate, incorporating both the expected return on risky assets and a low-risk discount rate for liabilities; (2) derivation of contribution adjustment policies required for convergence toward the target funded ratio and contribution rate; and (3) a… more →
Teacher Working Conditions and Dissatisfaction Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic
With a goal of contextualizing teacher job dissatisfaction during the first full school year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we contrast teachers’ experiences to the decade and a half leading up to the pandemic. We draw on nationally representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey and National Teacher and Principal Survey from the 2003-04 to 2020-21 school years. Through descriptive and… more →
How Much Teacher Is in Teacher Rating Scales?
Teacher rating scales (TRS) are often used to make service eligibility decisions for exceptional learners. Although TRS are regularly used to identify student exceptionalism either as part of an informal nomination process or through behavioral rating scales, there is little research documenting the between-teacher variance in teacher ratings or the consequences of such rater dependence. To… more →
Investigating the “Draw of Home” and Teachers’ Career Decisions
Research shows that teachers seek out jobs close to home, but previous studies have been unable to test whether proximity to home is related to retention in the teaching profession. We leverage a unique dataset from Teach For America (TFA) linking individuals’ preferred teaching locations, actual teaching locations, and years in teaching for 7 years after entering the profession. By controlling… more →
Interscholastic Policy Debate Promotes Critical Thinking and College-going: Evidence From Boston Public Schools
Few interventions reduce inequality in reading achievement, let alone higher order thinking skills, among adolescents. We study “policy debate”—an extracurricular activity focused on improving middle and high schoolers’ critical thinking, argumentation, and policy analysis skills—in Boston schools serving large concentrations of economically-disadvantaged students of color. Student fixed effects… more →