Harvard University
Instructional Alignment is Associated with Sustained Benefits of PreK
This study uses implementation fidelity data from PreK to 1st grade in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) to measure instructional alignment and examine whether stronger alignment is associated with sustained benefits of BPS PreK on children’s language, literacy, and math skills through first grade… more →
Are Connections the Way to Get Ahead? Social Capital, Student Achievement, Friendships, and Social Mobility
Chetty et al. (2022) say county density of cross-class friendships (referred to here as “adult-bridging capital”) has causal impacts on social mobility within the United States. We instead find that social mobility rates are a function of county density of family capital (higher marriage rates… more →
Average and heterogeneous effects of political party on education finance and outcomes: Regression discontinuity evidence from U.S. states across election cycles
In the U.S., state politicians directly influence legislation and budget decisions that can substantially affect public education spending and students. Does the political party of elected officials matter for these outcomes? We use a regression discontinuity design to analyze close house and… more →
The Causal Impact of Charter Schools on Private Tutoring Prevalence
Greater school choice leads to lower demand for private tutoring according to various international studies, but this has not been explicitly tested for the U.S. context. To estimate the causal effect of charter school appearances on neighboring private tutoring prevalence, we employ a… more →
Heterogeneity of item-treatment interactions masks complexity and generalizability in randomized controlled trials
Researchers use test outcomes to evaluate the effectiveness of education interventions across numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Aggregate test data—for example, simple measures like the sum of correct responses—are compared across treatment and control groups to determine whether an… more →
Discipline Reform, School Culture, and Student Achievement
Does relaxing strict school discipline improve student achievement, or lead to classroom disorder? We study a 2012 reform in New York City public middle schools that eliminated suspensions for non-violent, disorderly behavior, replacing them with less disruptive interventions. Using a difference… more →
Measuring returns to experience using supervisor ratings of observed performance: The case of classroom teachers
We study the returns to experience in teaching, estimated using supervisor ratings from classroom observations. We describe the assumptions required to interpret changes in observation ratings over time as the causal effect of experience on performance. We compare two difference-in-differences… more →
Teachers’ use of class time and student achievement
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… more →
New Schools and New Classmates: The Disruption and Peer Group Effects of School Reassignment
Policy makers periodically consider using student assignment policies to improve educational outcomes by altering the socio-economic and academic skill composition of schools. We exploit the quasi-random reassignment of students across schools in the Wake County Public School System to estimate… more →
The NCTE Transcripts: A Dataset of Elementary Math Classroom Transcripts
Classroom discourse is a core medium of instruction --- analyzing it can provide a window into teaching and learning as well as driving the development of new tools for improving instruction. We introduce the largest dataset of mathematics classroom transcripts available to researchers, and… more →
Estimating Treatment Effects with the Explanatory Item Response Model
This simulation study examines the characteristics of the Explanatory Item Response Model (EIRM) when estimating treatment effects when compared to classical test theory (CTT) sum and mean scores and item response theory (IRT)-based theta scores. Results show that the EIRM and IRT theta scores… more →
Can a Commercial Screening Tool Help Select Better Teachers?
Improving teacher selection is an important strategy for strengthening the quality of the teacher workforce. As districts adopt commercial teacher screening tools, evidence is needed to understand these tools’ predictive validity. We examine the relationship between Frontline Education’s… more →
The COVID-19 Impact on Reading Achievement Growth of Grade 3-5 Students in a U.S. Urban School District: Variation across Student Characteristics and Instructional Modalities
The current study aimed to explore the COVID-19 impact on the reading achievement growth of Grade 3-5 students in a large urban school district in the U.S. and whether the impact differed by students’ demographic characteristics and instructional modality. Specifically, using administrative data… more →
Computationally Identifying Funneling and Focusing Questions in Classroom Discourse
Responsive teaching is a highly effective strategy that promotes student learning. In math classrooms, teachers might funnel students towards a normative answer or focus students to reflect on their own thinking, deepening their understanding of math concepts. When teachers focus, they treat… more →
Do STEM Students Vote?
For decades, pundits, politicians, college administrators, and academics have lamented the dismal rates of civic engagement among students who enroll in courses and eventually major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM) fields. However, the research supporting this… more →
On the Threshold: Impacts of Barely Passing High-School Exit Exams on Post-Secondary Enrollment and Completion
Many states use high-school exit examinations to assess students’ career and college readiness in core subjects. We find meaningful consequences of barely passing the mathematics examination in Massachusetts, as opposed to just failing it. However, these impacts operate at different educational… more →
U.S. Middle School Mathematics Instruction, 2016
In recent decades, U.S. education leaders have advocated for more intellectually ambitious mathematics instruction in classrooms. Evidence about whether more ambitious mathematics instruction has filtered into contemporary classrooms, however, is largely anecdotal. To address this issue, we… more →
Modeling Item-Level Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with the Explanatory Item Response Model: Leveraging Online Formative Assessments to Pinpoint the Impact of Educational Interventions
Analyses that reveal how treatment effects vary allow researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to better understand the efficacy of educational interventions. In practice, however, standard statistical methods for addressing Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (HTE) fail to address the HTE that… more →
The impact of school desegregation on White individuals' racial attitudes and politics in adulthood
In this paper I study how school desegregation by race following Brown v. Board of Education affected White individuals’ racial attitudes and politics in adulthood. I use geocoded nationwide data from the General Social Survey and differences-in-differences to identify causal impacts.… more →
The Impact of Summer Programs on Student Mathematics Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
We present results from a meta-analysis of 37 contemporary experimental and quasi-experimental studies of summer programs in mathematics for children in Grades pre-K-12, examining what resources and characteristics predict stronger student achievement. Children who participated in summer programs… more →