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Efficacy
Cheaper (and more effective) by the dozen: Evidence from 12 randomized A/B tests optimizing tutoring for scale
Topics: Student LearningOver the course of 12 rapid randomized experiments, we optimize an educational tutoring program. Tutoring is one of the most effective educational approaches yet has remained difficult to scale due to high costs. We adaptively test and improve a technology-enabled tutoring program to enhance… more →
Comparative Cost Analyses of Community College Student Success Initiatives
Limited resources hinder completion and exacerbate inequality in community colleges. Existing research identifies strategies that raise outcomes but leaves policymakers and campus leaders asking, “What do these interventions really cost—and can we afford it?” I answer these questions by… 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
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThe 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 →
High School Effects on Civic Engagement
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernancePreparing young people for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship is cited as a fundamental purpose of public education, yet little is known about whether or how K-12 schools impact civic engagement. Using education records, birth records, and national voting records for nine cohorts of… more →
Efficacy of Zearn Math over two years in grades 3 to 5: An experiment in Texas
Topics: Student LearningZearn Math is a popular software platform for K-8 mathematics learning, designed to enable all students to successfully access grade-level content. RAND researchers collaborated with Zearn, the product’s developer, to design this evaluation. Then RAND conducted the study independently, randomly… more →
Item-Level Heterogeneity in Value Added Models: Implications for Reliability, Cross-Study Comparability, and Effect Sizes
Topics: MethodsTags: Assessment, EfficacyValue added models (VAMs) attempt to estimate the causal effects of teachers and schools on student test scores. We apply Generalizability Theory to show how estimated VA effects depend upon the selection of test items. Standard VAMs estimate causal effects on the items that are included on the… more →
Disparate Teacher Effects, Comparative Advantage, and Match Quality
Topics: MethodsDoes student-teacher match quality exist? While prior research documents disparities in teachers' impacts across student types, it has not distinguished between sorting and causal effects as the drivers of these disparities. I develop a flexible disparate value-added model (DVA) and introduce a… more →
From Passive Promises to Proactive Guarantees: The Efficacy of Financial Certainty Interventions Among Automatically (In-)Admissible Students
Low-income high-achieving students are less likely than high-income peers to enroll in selective colleges. Financial certainty interventions can address administrative burdens that stifle their enrollment, even when colleges are tuition-free for them. However, we do not know whether these… more →
Exploring the Potentials of Outcomes-Based Contracting: Findings from Initial Implementations
Outcomes-Based Contracting (OBC) ties vendor payments to performance metrics, aiming to enhance accountability in public education. This study examines its implementation in tutoring services through the Southern Education Foundation pilot program. Interviews with district leaders and vendors… more →
How Not to Fool Ourselves About Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects
Topics: MethodsTags: EfficacyResearchers across many fields have called for greater attention to heterogeneity of treatment effects—shifting focus from the average effect to variation in effects between different treatments, studies, or subgroups. True heterogeneity is important, but many reports of heterogeneity… more →
Exploring the Move Away from ‘Zero -Tolerance’ Policies: Evidence from Restorative Justice Practices in Texas and Michigan Schools
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis study examines the impact of statewide Restorative Justice (RJ) policy reforms in Michigan and Texas on student disciplinary outcomes and behavior, in light of increasing concerns over the negative effects of zero-tolerance policies. As schools move away from exclusionary discipline… more →
Skills and Earnings: A Multidimensional Perspective on Human Capital
Topics: Student LearningThe multitude of tasks performed in the labor market requires skills in many dimensions. Traditionally, human capital has been proxied primarily by educational attainment. However, an expanding body of literature highlights the importance of various skill dimensions for success in the labor… more →
Teacher Strikes and the Demobilization of Republican Voters
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceProtests can mobilize both supporters and opponents. Extant research suggests that disruptive protests are particularly likely to mobilize opponents, yet strikes—one of the most disruptive forms of protest—have been largely absent from this literature. We use an original dataset of 716 teacher… more →
How Powerful Are Promises? A Systematic Review of the Causal Mechanisms and Outcomes of "Free College" Programs in the United States
Tags: Higher education, Efficacy“Free college” (sometimes called Promise) programs are common in U.S. higher education. Reviewing 88 studies of 25 state and local programs, I provide a nuanced picture of the mechanisms through which these programs may work and their likely effects on students, communities, and colleges. Some… more →
Does One Plus One Always Equal Two? Examining Complementarities in Educational Interventions
Topics: MethodsTags: Assessment, EfficacyPublic policies targeting individuals based on need often impose disproportionate burden on communities that lack the resources to implement these policies effectively. In an elementary school setting, I examine whether community-level interventions focusing on similar needs and providing… more →
What Works and For Whom? Effectiveness and Efficiency of School Capital Investments Across the U.S.
This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school district bonds, test scores, and house prices for 29 U.S. states and a research design that exploits close elections with staggered timing, we show that increased… more →
Experimental education research: clarifying why, how and when to use random assignment
Topics: MethodsTags: Efficacy, School reformOver the last twenty years, education researchers have increasingly conducted randomised experiments with the goal of informing the decisions of educators and policymakers. Such experiments have generally employed broad, consequential, standardised outcome measures in the hope that this would… more →
College Counseling in the Classroom: Randomized Evaluation of a Teacher-Based Approach to College Advising
Tags: College readiness, EfficacyGuidance counselors provide the main source of college advising for low-income high school students, but are woefully understaffed in high-need schools. This paper evaluates an approach to school-based college advising that relies on teachers rather than counselors. Using a randomized control… more →
Integrated Student Support Intervention Mitigates the Adverse Impact of School Mobility on Middle School Students' Achievement and Behavior
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceSchool mobility, compounding socioeconomic inequities, can undermine academic achievement and behavior, particularly during middle school years. This study investigates the effect of a school-based integrated student support intervention – City Connects – on the achievement and behavior of… more →
Out of Sight, Out of Mind? The Gap between Students’ Test Performance and Teachers’ Estimations in India and Bangladesh
This is one of the first studies of the mismatch between students’ test scores and teachers’ estimations of those scores in low- and middle-income countries. Prior studies in high-income countries have found strong correlations between these metrics. We leverage data on actual and estimated… more →