Georgetown University
Fast Track to Success? A Mixed Methods Evaluation of Condensed Course Formats at Tennessee Community Colleges
As colleges face increasing pressure to improve student outcomes, one solution gaining traction is the adoption of condensed courses (i.e., shortened academic terms). We employ quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effect of enrolling in a condensed course on course- and student-level… more →
COVID-19-Induced School Closures and Disadvantaged Children’s Post-COVID Academic Growth: A Longitudinal Cohort Study
This study draws on unique, repeated-measures data on a diverse (51% female; 53% Latine, 22% Black, 11% White), low-income cohort of children (N = 680) whose academic skills were assessed before and after COVID-19-induced school closures. Longitudinal models predicted changes in children’s… more →
Schools Never Die: Toward a Dynamic Systems Theory of School Closure
Educational researchers and policymakers typically treat school closures as discrete administrative decisions with clear endpoints. This paper challenges that assumption by applying Dynamic Systems Theory to school closure policy and research. We argue that schools function as adaptive… more →
Reclaiming Educational Fraud and Waste: A Conceptual Framework to Locate the True Sources of Resource Leakage and Harm in The U.S. K-12 System
The recent dismantling of federal educational institutions has been legitimated under the banner of “eliminating fraud and waste.” In this paper, we reclaim these terms to locate the sources of potential fraud and waste in the U.S. K-12 education system through a novel conceptual framework that… more →
Measuring Conflict in Local Politics
Many of the most tangible and immediate political conflicts in Americans’ lives occur at the local level. Yet, we lack large-scale evidence on how, why, and where conflict occurs in local governments. In this paper, we present a new dataset of nearly 100,000 videos of school board meetings, and… more →
On the Margin: Who Receives a Juvenile Referral in School and What Effect Does It Have?
Involvement with the juvenile justice system carries immense consequences both to detained youth and to society more broadly. Extant research on the “school-to-prison pipeline” often focuses on school disciplinary practices such as suspension with less attention on understanding the impact of… more →
The Limited Impact of Free College Policies
Despite the growing popularity of free college proposals, countries with higher college subsidies tend to have higher enrollment rates but not higher graduation rates. To capture this evidence and evaluate potential free college policies, we rely on a dynamic model of college enrollment,… more →
Cows Don't Give Milk: An Effort Model of College Graduation
This paper estimates a dynamic model of college enrollment, progression, and graduation. A central feature of the model is student effort, which has a direct effect on class completion and an indirect effect mitigating risks on class completion and college persistence. The estimated model… more →
The contribution of short-cycle programs to student outcomes: Evidence from Colombia
Short-cycle higher education programs (SCPs), lasting two or three years, capture about a quarter of higher education enrollment in the world and can play a key role enhancing workforce skills. In this paper, we estimate the program-level contribution of SCPs to student academic and labor market… more →
What is the Point of Schooling? The Politics of Education Policy in Tanzania Since 1961
Education is one of the most important public goods provided by modern governments. Yet governments worldwide seldom perform well in the sector. This raises the question: why do governments preside over poor education quality? This article answers this question with evidence from Tanzania. Using… more →
Incentivizing Equity? The Effects of Performance-Based Funding on Race-Based Gaps in College Completion
Performance-based funding models for higher education, which tie state support for institutions to performance on student outcomes, have proliferated in recent decades. Some states have designed these policies to also address educational attainment gaps by including bonus payments for… more →
Finishing the Last Lap: Experimental Evidence on Strategies to Increase College Completion for Students At Risk of Late Withdrawal
Nearly half of students who enter college do not graduate. The majority of efforts to increase college completion have focused on supporting students before or soon after they enter college, yet many students drop out after making significant progress towards their degree. In this paper, we… more →
Community College Pathways for Disadvantaged Students
In this paper we estimate the impacts of the “pathways” chosen by community college students—in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths—on the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focus on the extent to which there… more →