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Elementary schools
Effectiveness of Tier 1 Content-Integrated Literacy Intervention on Early Elementary English Learners’ Reading Comprehension and Writing: Evidence from Randomized Controlled Trial
Topics: Student LearningThe current study replicated and extended the previous findings of content-integrated literacy intervention focusing on its effectiveness on first- and second-grade English learners’ (N = 1,314) reading comprehension, writing, vocabulary knowledge, and oral proficiency. Statistically significant… more →
Test Score Patterns Across Three COVID-19-impacted School Years
Topics: Student LearningThe COVID-19 pandemic has been a seismic and on-going disruption to K-12 schooling. Using test scores from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8, we tracked changes in math and reading achievement across the first two years of the pandemic. Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were… more →
Teachers of Color, Culturally Responsive Teaching, and Student Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from the Random Assignment of Teachers to Classes
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentBlack teachers are critical resources for our children and schools.
An Experimental Evaluation of Arts Field Trips
This paper presents results of a multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the academic and social-emotional effects of arts-based field trips. We randomly assign fourth and fifth grade students to receive arts-based field trips throughout the school year or to serve as a control. Treatment… more →
The Non-Democratic Roots of Mass Education: Evidence from 200 Years
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceBecause primary education is often conceptualized as a pro-poor redistributive policy, a common argument is that democratization increases its provision. But primary education can also serve the goals of autocrats, including redistribution, promoting loyalty, nation-building, and/or… more →
Impacts of School Entry Age on Academic Growth through 2nd Grade: A Multi-State Regression Discontinuity Analysis
Topics: Student LearningTags: Elementary schoolsThe belief that additional time allows children to become more ready for school has affected public policy and individual practices. Prior studies estimated either associations between school entry age and academic growth or causal effects on achievement measured at one or two points. This paper… more →
Gender Stereotypes in the Classroom and Effects on Achievement
Topics: Student LearningWe study the effect of elementary school teachers’ beliefs about gender roles on student achievement. We exploit a natural experiment where teachers are prevented from self-selecting into schools, and conditional on school, students are allocated to teachers randomly. We show that girls who are… more →
Fostering Patience in the Classroom: Results from Randomized Educational Intervention
Topics: Student Well-BeingWe evaluate the impact of a randomized educational intervention on children’s intertemporal choices. The intervention aims to improve the ability to imagine future selves, and encourages forward-looking behavior using a structured curriculum delivered by children’s own trained teachers. We find… more →
Accountability-Driven School Reform: Are There Unintended Effects on Younger Children in Untested Grades?
Topics: Student LearningTest-based accountability pressures have been shown to result in transferring less effective teachers into untested early grades and more effective teachers to tested grades. In this paper, we evaluate whether a state initiative to turnaround its lowest performing schools reproduced a similar… more →
A Reanalysis of Impacts of the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program
Topics: Student LearningWe present a reanalysis of the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program (TNVPK), a state-funded program designed to promote the school readiness of 4-year-olds from low-income families. Oversubscribed programs used a lottery to randomly assign prospective enrollees a chance to… more →