University of California, Los Angeles
Effects of Dual-Language Immersion on Attendance and Reclassification in a Large Urban District
Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs have proliferated across the United States, yet evidence on their effects for English Learner-designated (EL) students in large, diverse urban districts remains limited. This study examines DLI's effects on attendance and reclassification—two outcomes that… more →
Long-term Consequences of Early Access to Educational Opportunity
This paper examines the long-term consequences of tracking in middle school. Using longitudinal administrative data from a large, urban school district and regression and quasi-experimental matching methods, we find that students who had the opportunity to take advanced math earned higher math… more →
Cultural Relevance at Scale: The Effects of an Ethnic Studies Expansion on Academic Outcomes
Ethnic Studies is a culturally relevant curriculum designed to address the instructional needs of an increasingly diverse student population. However, evidence regarding its effectiveness at scale remains limited. This study evaluates the impact of district-wide implementation using a student… more →
Who Leaves? How Job and Teacher Characteristics Relate to Turnover in Child Care Settings
Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings rely on teachers to support children’s development and families’ workforce participation. Yet ECCE teachers turn over at high rates, often twice as often as teachers in K-12 settings. Because large-scale ECCE workforce data are rare, little is… more →
What is the impact of changing schools on the academic outcomes of elementary and middle school students?
We study how different kinds of school changes shape achievement in grades 4–8 using data from six California districts (2016–17 through 2019–20). We estimate the effects of structural (promotional), nonstructural summer, and midyear moves and find that structural and summer moves have near-zero… more →
The Extent of Student Mobility Among Vulnerable Groups in California
Nonstructural student mobility—school changes not tied to grade-level promotion—is common and consequential yet remains underexamined in recent research. This paper analyzes the incidence, disparities, and predictors of nonstructural school mobility using longitudinal data from six… more →
A Family Affair: The Effects of College on Parent and Student Finances
Paying for college is often a family affair, with both parents and students contributing. We study the effects of college on family finances using administrative data on the universe of federal aid applicants in California linked to credit records. We provide the first comprehensive analysis of… more →
Racial, linguistic, and economic diversity across schools with two-way dual language immersion programs: Evidence from Los Angeles Unified School District
Two-way dual language immersion programs (TWDL) aim to integrate English speakers and speakers of a partner language in the same classroom to receive content instruction in both languages. Stated goals include bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, and sociocultural competence.… more →
Dual Language Program Expansion and Dispersion in the Context of Neighborhood Change, School Choice, and Enrollment Decline
Purpose. Bilingual programs in the United States, particularly two-way dual language immersion (TWDL) programs, have been implemented since the 1960s to support the education of English Learner-classified (EL-classified) and language minoritized students. Over the past decade, TWDL programs have… more →
Identification of Non-Additive Fixed Effects Models: Is the Return to Teacher Quality Homogeneous?
Panel or grouped data are often used to allow for unobserved individual heterogeneity in econometric models via fixed effects. In this paper, we discuss identification of a panel data model in which the unobserved heterogeneity both enters additively and interacts with treatment variables. We… more →
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Targeted Academic Coaching
To boost college graduation rates, policymakers often advocate for academic supports such as coaching or mentoring. Proactive and intensive coaching interventions are effective, but are costly and difficult to scale. We evaluate a relatively lower-cost group coaching program targeted at first… more →
Hard-to-Staff Centers: Exploring Center-Level Variation in the Persistence of Child Care Teacher Turnover
High rates of teacher turnover in child care settings have negative implications for young children’s learning experiences and for efforts to improve child care quality. Prior research has explored the prevalence and predictors of turnover at the individual teacher level, but less is known about… more →
The Impact of Natural Disasters on Human Capital
We show that natural disasters affect a region’s aggregate human capital through at least four channels. In addition to causing out-migration, natural disasters reduce student achievement, lower high school graduation rates, and decrease post-secondary attendance. We estimate that disasters that… more →
Can Adolescents Acquire Cultural Capital Through Social Capital Access and Exposure? Longitudinal Experimental Evidence of the Impact of Ties to College-Educated Adults
Scholarly debate focuses on whether cultural capital reproduces existing inequalities or provides a path to upward mobility. Most research, however, focuses only on cross-sectional associations and is unclear about how disadvantaged adolescents can increase their amounts of cultural capital.… more →
Teacher Turnover in Early Childhood Education: Longitudinal Evidence from the Universe of Publicly-Funded Programs in Louisiana
This paper provides a longitudinal examination of teacher turnover across all publicly-funded, center-based early childhood sites in Louisiana. We follow 4,465 early educators teaching in fall 2016 up to seven times through the fall of 2019. We provide the first statewide estimates of within… more →
School Discipline and Racial Disparities in Early Adulthood
Despite interest in the role of school discipline in the creation of racial inequality, previous research has been unable to identify how students who receive suspensions in school differ from unsuspended classmates on key young adult outcomes. We utilize novel data to document the links between… more →
Heterogeneous Major Preference for Extrinsic Incentives: The Effects of Wage Information on the Gender Gap in STEM Major Choice
Despite the growing evidence of informational interventions on college and major choices, we know little about how such light-touch interventions affect the gender gap in STEM majors. Linking survey data to administrative records of Chinese college applicants, we conducted a large-scale… more →
Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S. Born Students
We study the effect of exposure to immigrants on the educational outcomes of US-born students, using a unique dataset combining population-level birth and school records from Florida. This research question is complicated by substantial school selection of US-born students, especially among… more →
The Effects of Absenteeism on Cognitive and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19
In March 2020, most schools in the United States closed their doors and transitioned to distance learning in an effort to contain COVID-19. During the transition a significant number of students did not fully engage in these learning opportunities due to resource or other constraints. An urgent… more →
Heat and Learning
We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning may mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer… more →