University of Pennsylvania
Aligned Pathways, Unequal Earnings: Gendered Transitions from Community College to Work
States increasingly use financial aid policy to steer students into designated high-demand workforce fields, yet evidence on whether these fields offer stronger labor-market pathways remains limited. We study Virginia's Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3) initiative, which provides tuition… more →
Teacher Stability in Turnaround Schools: An Examination of the Impacts of Michigan’s Partnership Model on Teacher Turnover
While a large literature demonstrates that school turnaround can improve performance, impacts on teacher retention are more ambiguous. We examine the impact of Michigan’s turnaround policy on teacher turnover before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Event study findings show limited immediate… more →
The Geography of Gifted Education: Exploring School and Neighborhood Predictors of Access to Gifted & Talented Programs in New York City
Black and Hispanic students participate in gifted education at lower rates than their share of general education public school enrollment would suggest, including within New York City's Gifted and Talented (G&T) admissions process. Debates over this disparity focus on how students are… more →
Unveiling Racism: A Systematic Review of Survey Measures of Racism in Education
Education policy research aimed at eliminating racism necessitates methodological innovation that fosters both racial equity–centered approaches and robust empirical analysis of the systemic and structural nature of racism. Most quantitative research in educational psychology does not account… more →
Local Signals in a Global Tournament: Information Frictions, Optimism, and College Completion
Families frequently receive local signals about children’s skills, such as class rank in high school, yet the college market in which most students ultimately compete is much broader. Using nationally-representative data, we show that student effort, parental investment, and beliefs about… more →
Making AI Tutoring Productive: Evidence from a Mastery-Based Math Practice Experiment
Large language models (LLMs) can make tutoring more scalable, but only if students use them to reason through mistakes rather than avoid effort. We study this question in a randomized field experiment with more than 6,000 middle-school students in Hamilton County Schools using NUMI, a research… more →
“Can we fight this fight?”: How Racial Politics Shape the Implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education Teaching Standards
In this study, we investigate the role of teacher education (TE) programs in filtering the implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education teaching guidelines in Pennsylvania. Drawing on a comparative case study of three TE programs across diverse institutional and political… more →
No Pay? No Way! Teacher Compensation Reforms and the Market for Graduate Degrees
Graduate degrees in education serve as both a salary-boosting credential for teachers and a vital revenue source for institutions. But given a lack of evidence of their effectiveness, reformers have sought to decouple teacher pay from these credentials. Without a wage premium, educators may skip… more →
Institutional Resources or Changing Compositions? Unpacking Neighborhood Effects on Education
Children in neighborhoods marked by concentrated poverty and racial isolation face persistent educational barriers, yet the mechanisms underlying neighborhood effects remain poorly understood. This study employs a multi-method analysis of the Near North Side Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI)… more →
Beyond School Police Officers: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Exposure to a Fuller Range of School Security Personnel
Using data from the 2017–18 and 2020–21 Civil Rights Data Collection, we document dispari-ties in exposure to security personnel across US high schools and geographic levels. We dis-tinguish between law enforcement officers (LEOs) and school security guards (SSGs) to cap-ture variation in how… more →
Embrace, Contradiction, or Prohibition: A National Scan of State Policies for Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education
This qualitative document review is a national scan of state policies pertaining to culturally responsive and sustaining education (CRSE) as of September 2025. We present a typology of states—CRSE Forward, CRSE Conflicted, CRSE Limited, and CRSE Prohibitive—reflecting how CRSE is taken up in… more →
A Dynamic Model of the Economic Returns to Adolescent Social Skills
Social-skill formation during adolescence depends on peer environments, but those environments are equilibrium outcomes shaped by individual choices. To account for this endogeneity, we develop and estimate a dynamic model in which parents invest in adolescents, adolescents choose whether to… 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 →
A Degree of Choice: Educational Decision-Making after College
Despite the growing share of college-educated adults returning to higher education, we know little about how individuals weigh the consequential decision to go to graduate school. In this paper, we ask how individuals decide to pursue a particular graduate program within a field of study. We… more →
The Role of Education-Industry Match in College Earnings Premia
Many states incentivize college students to major in fields aligned with specific, often “in-demand” industries. While their goal is often to raise students’ labor market outcomes, little is known about whether matching one’s degree with an industry of work improves employment and earnings. We… more →
The Impact of Tutor Gender Match on Girls’ STEM Interest, Engagement, and Performance
Gender disparities in STEM persist despite girls performing as well as boys academically, suggesting girls may benefit from role models who shape their perceptions of STEM. We examine whether female math tutors influence girls’ STEM interest, attendance, and performance. We randomly assigned 422… more →
Are Work-Based Professional Skills Associated with Postsecondary Entrance and Persistence? Novel Evidence from the Cristo Rey Network
Professional skills such as initiative, communication, and adaptability are thought to shape postsecondary success, but most evidence comes from self- or teacher-reported measures collected in school settings. This study uses employer ratings of students’ professional skills gathered through… more →
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 →
Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead? Evaluating the Effects of Virginia's Workforce-Targeted Free College Program
Tuition-free college programs are gaining momentum as policymakers address rising college costs and workforce readiness. Despite their growing adoption, limited research examines how workforce-focused eligibility criteria impact student outcomes beyond enrollment. This pre-registered study… more →
Choosing Schools in Choice Neighborhoods: Impacts of Student Mobility, School Composition, and Case Management on Academic Outcomes
This study examines the academic impacts of the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI), a federal public housing revitalization program, focusing on how case management, student mobility, and school compositional change intersect to shape outcomes. Using an eight-year student-level panel (2015… more →