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Equity
Hmong but not Asian, Sāmoan but not Pacific Islander: Tracing the ECLS-K Racial Data (Mis)Classification Journey
Topics: MethodsRace is a socially and politically charged concept that remains contested in the United States. We examine racial data (mis)classification in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS-K) dataset. Centering the racial data journey of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA… more →
Unequal and Persistent Effects of Student Loan Policy: Evidence from Parent PLUS Reforms
Federal student loan policy is designed as a uniform intervention, yet institutions differ in their reliance on specific sources of financing. We study how these differences shape the transmission of policy shocks using two reforms to the Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (Parent PLUS)… more →
Who Leaves? Interdistrict Magnet School Openings and Enrollment Dynamics in Nearby Schools
Topics: School ChoiceConnecticut expanded interdistrict magnet schools (IMS) intending to reduce racial and socioeconomic segregation across districts, yet the potential unintended effects on student composition in nearby schools remains unclear. Leveraging the staggered rollout of IMS openings, this study finds… more →
Does in-service training in special education increase the effectiveness of general classroom teachers? Evidence from the large-scale “Special Education Pedagogy for Learning” program in Sweden
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThis study evaluates the impact of a large-scale professional development program for general classroom teachers in Sweden, the “Special Education Pedagogy for Learning” (SFL) program. Linking program administrative data to national full population register data, we apply a dynamic difference-in… more →
The Impact of the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard Decision on Undergraduate Demographics
The 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA) effectively ended the explicit consideration of race in college admissions. This paper examines the impact of SFFA on the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition of undergraduate… more →
Supporting Females in STEM: Evidence on Student-Instructor Gender-Matching in 4-Year Research Universities in Texas
Topics: Student LearningDespite progress in overall educational attainment, female students remain underrepresented in STEM fields. One proposed mechanism for improving female students' outcomes is exposure to same-gender faculty, yet evidence on both the prevalence and impacts of student–instructor gender matching in… more →
Understanding the Construction of Compliance with Anti-"DEI" Legislation
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceDespite documented harms of anti-“DEI” laws, little is known about the mechanisms that shape implementation to give these laws expanded and suppressive meaning. Guided by legal mobilization theory and repressive legalism, we examine how institutional actors implement legislation restricting… more →
Supplanting or Supplementing? The Stickiness of Title I Revenues in Post-Adequacy Era
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis paper examines how school districts respond to federal Title I funding in the postadequacy era. I find that fiscal adjustment occurs through capital investment rather than operating budgets. Using a regression discontinuity design centered on the Title I Concentration Grant eligibility… more →
State Merit Aid: Effects on College Enrollment, Labor Market Outcomes, and Government Revenue
This paper evaluates long-run effects of state merit aid programs that subsidize in-state college attendance. Using national survey data on college enrollment and U.S. Census data, I exploit staggered program adoption across states. Merit aid shifts students from out-of-state to in-state… more →
Homelessness and Student Outcomes by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and School Level
Topics: Student Well-BeingA substantial number of U.S. students experience homelessness, yet our understanding of how homelessness shapes student outcomes is limited. We use seven years of longitudinal data on Indiana students in kindergarten through eighth grade, including more than 40,000 students who experienced… more →
School Finance in the US
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis chapter provides an overview of K-12 public school finance in the United States by tracing how funding systems changed over time, how they operate today, and how well they advance core policy goals. Section 2 documents the long-run shift from local property tax finance toward larger state… more →
Cheapskin Effects? The Heterogeneous Value of Industry-Recognized Certificates Earned by High School Students
Topics: Student LearningHuman capital theory and signaling models posit that educational credentials convey information about workers’ skills, producing discrete labor market returns beyond years of schooling. While extensive evidence documents these “sheepskin effects” for degrees, far less is known about industry-… more →
Digital Incentives in Surveys: Response Rates and Sociodemographic Effects in a Large-Scale Parental Nudge Intervention
Topics: MethodsThis study examines how digital incentives influence survey participation and engagement in a large randomized controlled trial of parents across six school districts. We test how incentive amount and information about vendor options affect response behavior and explore differences by language… more →
IDEA-Aligned Estimates of Racial Disproportionality in Special Education versus Conventional Approaches: A cautionary note on included-variable bias when achievement and socioeconomic status proxy for special education need
Topics: MethodsTags: Equity, Students with disabilitiesRacial disproportionality in special education is a contested policy space. Federal oversight has traditionally focused on minority over-representation through IDEA’s significant disproportionality framework. However, observational studies report that Black students appear under-identified based… more →
Understanding How HBCUs Leverage Partnerships to Support Students’ Basic Needs
Topics: Student Well-BeingBasic needs insecurity has become a pressing equity issue in U.S. higher education, yet little research examines how historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) address students’ holistic needs. Guided by a practice-based, pragmatic analytic orientation and informed by a basic needs… more →
Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives
Tags: Equity, Returns to education and skills, School climate and culture, Teacher hiring and retentionWe examine how performance changes when teachers transfer across very different school contexts. The Talent Transfer Initiative program created a rare natural experiment to study such transfers by randomly assigning low-achieving schools the ability to offer high-performing teachers at higher-… more →
Making the Implicit Explicit: An Experiment with Implicit Gender Stereotypes and College Major Choice
We study whether making college students aware of their implicit gender–STEM stereotypes affects their pursuit of a STEM degree. In a field experiment at a large, selective U.S. university, over 800 undergraduates completed a gender–STEM Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a detailed survey on… more →
Who Is Newly Absent? Racial Inequities in Post-Pandemic Transitions into Chronic and Severe Absence in Georgia
Topics: Student LearningTags: Absenteeism, EquityChronic absenteeism rose sharply following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has declined only modestly since, yet most evidence remains cross-sectional and cannot distinguish persistence from redistribution in absence behavior. Using a cohort transition framework, the analysis compares… more →
The Effect of Air Pollution on Student Achievement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence
Topics: Student LearningAir pollution is one of the most pressing global public health challenges of the 21st century. This article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the best available evidence of the effect of air pollution on student achievement. A meta-analysis of 28 causal studies around the world… more →
The Nation’s Achievement Inequality Report Card: An Assessment of Test Score and Equality Trends in Traditional Public, Charter, Catholic, and Department of Defense Schools
Topics: School ChoiceWe present a descriptive comparison of trends in achievement and inequality in traditional public, public charter, Catholic, and Department of Defense schools in the U.S. Our sample includes 6,155,570 observations for 4th and 8th graders in math and reading between 2005 and 2024. We focus on… more →