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K-12 Education
The prevalence of school-based healthcare has increased markedly over the past decade. We study a modern mode of school-based healthcare, telemedicine, that offers the potential to reach places and populations with historically low access to such care. School-based telemedicine clinics (SBTCs) provide students with access to healthcare during the regular school day through private videoconferencing with a healthcare provider. We exploit variation over time in SBTC openings across schools in three rural districts in North Carolina. We find that school-level SBTC access reduces the likelihood that a student is chronically absent by 2.5 percentage points (29 percent) and reduces the number of days absent by about 0.8 days (10 percent). Relatedly, access to an SBTC increases the likelihood of math and reading test-taking by between 1.8-2.0 percentage points (about 2 percent). Heterogeneity analyses suggest that these effects are driven by male students. Finally, we see suggestive evidence that SBTC access reduces violent or weapons-related disciplinary infractions among students but has little influence on other forms of misbehavior.
A stable learning environment is critical to high school reforms aimed at promoting postsecondary educational success. High teacher attrition can disrupt stable learning environments by uprooting student-teacher relationships and harming school climate. Educational leaders need greater understanding of how college readiness reforms alter learning environments generally, and teacher retention in particular. We study teacher turnover in two Texas College and Career Readiness School Models (CCRSM), called Early College High Schools and inclusive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Academies. We find (a) CCRSM schools have lower teacher turnover compared to traditional public high schools, (b) charter versions of CCRSM schools have higher turnover, but (c) non-CCRSM charters have the highest overall teacher turnover. We discuss implications for improving high school-based college readiness reforms.
Many education policymakers and system leaders prioritize recruiting and developing effective school leaders as key mechanisms to improve school climate and student learning. Despite efforts to select and support successful school leaders, however, relatively little is understood about the prior professional experiences and skillsets that principals possess upon entry into their positions. In this descriptive paper, we use 14 years of administrative data on all educators in Oregon to trace the prior professional experiences and instructional effectiveness of those who become school leaders. We highlight that many principals in Oregon acquire educational leadership experience outside the assistant principal role and outside of the school district in which they serve as principals. We also find that when future school leaders were teachers, they improved student achievement at modestly higher rates than their peers. Insight into these topics has the potential to inform the pre-service training, recruitment and professional development of school leaders.
Recent policy efforts have attempted to increase the number of dual enrollment courses offered within Career and Technical Education pathways and there is evidence to suggest that this practice is widespread. However, there is very little research on student participation in CTE dual enrollment and on its impacts. This study examines participation in the CTE dual enrollment pathway in North Carolina, finding that about 9% of North Carolina students participated in CTE dual enrollment courses in 11th or 12th grade and disparities in participation among subgroups were less than for college transfer dual enrollment courses. Using a quasi-experimental approach to examine the effect of the program, the study found that participation is CTE was positively associated with college credits earned in high school, graduation from high school, and overall enrollment in college within one year after high school. The study also examined results by subgroup.
Research suggests that longer commute times can increase employee turnover probabilities by increasing job stress and reducing job attachment and embeddedness. Using administrative data from a midsized urban school district, we test whether teachers and school leaders with longer commute times are more likely to transfer schools or exit the school system. We find that transfer probability increases roughly monotonically through most of the commute time distribution. Teachers who commute 45 minutes or more to work are 10 percentage points more likely to transfer than another teacher in the same school commuting only 5 minutes. They are also 3 percentage points more likely to leave the district. Consistent with turnover patterns, we find that teachers with longer commute times are more likely to be absent from work. Their observation scores are also lower. These results suggest that schools may benefit from hiring teachers who live relatively close by, at least in the absence of supports or resources to compensate teachers with longer commutes. In contrast, we find no consistent evidence that principals’ or assistant principals’ likelihood of turning over, absence rates, or performance ratings are a function of their travel time from home to work.
Drawing on 16 years of nationally representative survey data from 2007-2022, I demonstrate that partisan gaps—the average differences in public opinion between Democrats and Republicans—have widened on many education issues. The growth of the partisan gaps consistently exceeds what would be expected due to the changing demographic compositions of the parties alone. In most cases, widening partisan gaps are primarily attributable to sorting (the alignment of one’s party affiliation and one’s issue positions) rather than polarization (increasing support for more extreme positions relative to more moderate positions). However, polarization is also increasing on some of the most divisive issues. Among those who are sorting, individuals are overwhelmingly switching their issues positions to align with their party affiliations rather than switching their party affiliations to align with their issue positions.
In spring 2020, nearly every U.S. public school closed at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Existing evidence suggests that local political partisanship and teachers union strength were better predictors of fall 2020 school re-opening status than Covid case and death rates. We replicate and extend these analyses using data collected over the 2020-21 academic year. We demonstrate that Covid case and death rates were meaningfully associated with initial rates of in-person instruction. We also show that all three factors—Covid, partisanship, and teachers unions—became less predictive of in-person instruction as the school year continued. We then leverage data from two nationally representative surveys of Americans’ attitudes toward education and identify an as-yet undiscussed factor that predicts in-person instruction: public support for increasing teacher salaries. We speculate that education leaders were better able to manage the logistical and political complexities of school re-openings in communities with greater support for educators.
We evaluate the effects of grade retention on students’ academic, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes in Indiana. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that third grade retention increases achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) and math immediately and substantially, and the effects persist into middle school. We find no evidence of grade retention effects on student attendance or disciplinary incidents, again into middle school. Our findings combine to show that Indiana’s third grade retention policy improves achievement for retained students without adverse impacts along (measured) non-academic dimensions.
We study teachers’ choices about how to allocate class time across different instructional activities, for example, lecturing, open discussion, or individual practice. Our data come from secondary schools in England, specifically classes preceding GCSE exams. Students score higher in math when their teacher devotes more class time to individual practice and assessment. In contrast, students score higher in English if there is more discussion and work with classmates. Class time allocation predicts test scores separate from the quality of the teacher’s instruction during the activities. These results suggest opportunities to improve student achievement without changes in teachers’ skills.
When an employee expects repeated evaluation and performance incentives over time, the potential future rewards create an incentive to invest in building relevant skills. Because new skills benefit job performance, the effects of an evaluation program can persist after the rewards end or even anticipate the start of rewards. I test for persistence and anticipation effects, along with more conventional predictions, using a quasi-experiment in Tennessee schools. Performance improves with new evaluation measures, but gains are larger when the teacher expects future rewards linked to future scores. Performance rises further when incentives start and remains higher even after incentives end.