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Equity
Paying for School Finance Reforms: How States Raise Revenues to Fund Increases in Elementary-Secondary Education Expenditures
Tags: EquityThis study investigates how individual states raise revenue to pay for elementary-secondary education spending following school finance reforms (SFRs). We identify states that increased and sustained education expenditures after reform, search for legislative statutes that appropriated more… more →
Assessing the Benefits of Education in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Pre-K Lottery in Georgia
Topics: Student LearningNumerous studies have demonstrated a strong link between participation in pre-K programs and both short-term student achievement and positive later-life outcomes. Existing evidence primarily stems from experimental studies of small-scale, high-quality programs conducted in the 1960s and… more →
Financial Deregulation, School Finance, and Student Achievement
Tags: EquityThis paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an… more →
(Pay)Walled Gardens: Status and Racialized Discourse Among Authors of Student Loan News Articles
News media plays a crucial role in the student loan policy ecosystem by influencing how policymakers and the public understand the “problem” of student loans. Prior research emphasizes the causal impact of the media on the social construction of policy issues and the lack of knowledge about the… more →
Are Friends of Schools the Enemies of Equity? The Interplay of Public School Funding Policies and Private External Fundraising
Tags: Equity, School districtsSchool districts across the U.S. have adopted funding policies designed to distribute resources more equitably across schools. However, schools are also increasing external fundraising efforts to supplement district budget allocations. We document the interaction between funding policies and… more →
Suspended from Work and School? Impacts of Layoff Events and Unemployment Insurance on Student Disciplinary Incidence
Topics: Student Well-BeingWe examine the impact of local labor market shocks and state unemployment insurance (UI) policies on student discipline in U.S. public schools. Analyzing school-level discipline data and firm-level layoffs in 23 states, we find that layoffs have little effect on discipline rates on average. However… more →
Experimental Evidence on "Direct Admissions" from Four States: Impacts on College Application and Enrollment
Complexity and uncertainty loom large in the college application process. We leverage a largescale experiment that reduces administrative burden through a proactive guarantee of admission coupled with tailored information, a simplified application form, and automatic fee waiver to test the… more →
Framing Effects and the Public’s Attitudes toward Racial Equity in Education Policy
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceFrames shape public opinion on policy issues, with implications for policy adoption and agenda-setting. What impact do common issue frames for racial equity in education have on voters’ support for racially equitable education policy? Across survey experiments with two independent representative… more →
Racial, linguistic, and economic diversity across schools with two-way dual language immersion programs: Evidence from Los Angeles Unified School District
Sarah Asson, Erica Frankenberg, Clemence Darriet, Lucrecia Santibañez, Claudia Cervantes-Soon, Francesca López.Topics: Families and CommunitiesTwo-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 →
The Stickiness of Pandemic-Driven Disenrollment from Public Schools
Topics: School ChoiceThe extent to which pandemic-induced public school enrollment declines will persist is unclear. Student-level data from Michigan through fall 2021 yields three relevant findings. First, relative to pre-pandemic trends, fall 2021 enrollment had partially recovered for low-income, Black, and… more →
Humanizing Policy Implementation in Higher Education Through an Equity-Centered Approach
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: Higher education, EquityWith an urgency to leverage existing and emerging policy reforms to improve student outcomes by centering educational equity, this manuscript explores the critical role of policy implementation in higher education–specifically in community colleges. In doing so, we explore historical and… more →
Do Women Still Earn Less than Men after College Graduation: Evidence from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study 1993 Cohort
Even though women have continuously caught up with men in education attainment and labor market participation since the 1970s, the wage gap between men and women still universally exists today. Do female college graduates still earn less than their male counterparts if men’s and women’s “… more →
Spillover Effects of Black Teachers on White Teachers’ Racial Competency: Mixed Methods Evidence from North Carolina
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThe US teaching force remains disproportionately white while the student body grows more diverse. It is therefore important to understand how and under what conditions white teachers learn racial competency. This study applies a mixed-methods approach to investigate the hypothesis that Black… more →
Unequal Learning Loss: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Influenced the Academic Growth of Learners at the Tails of the Achievement Distribution
Topics: Student LearningTags: Equity, Covid-19 recoveryThe COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantial unfinished learning for U.S. students, but to differing degrees for various subgroups. For example, students of color, from low-income families, or who attended high-poverty schools experienced greater unfinished learning. In this study we examined… more →
For-profit milk in nonprofit cartons? The case of nonprofit charter schools subcontracting with for-profit education management organizations
Topics: School ChoiceTags: Charter schools, EquityThere is growing concern that some nonprofit public service providers may be nonprofit in name but not in fact. We consider this concern in the context of nonprofit charter schools, which sometimes subcontract their daily operations to for-profit management organizations. We use unique data from… more →
Are Connections the Way to Get Ahead? Social Capital, Student Achievement, Friendships, and Social Mobility
Topics: Families and CommunitiesTags: Neighborhoods, EquityChetty et al. (2022) say county density of cross-class friendships (referred to here as “adult-bridging capital”) has causal impacts on social mobility within the United States. We instead find that social mobility rates are a function of county density of family capital (higher marriage rates… more →
Rich Grad, Poor Grad: Family Background and College Major Choice
Expected earnings matter for college major choices, and majors differ in both their average earnings and the age profile of their earnings. We show that students' family background is strongly related to the earnings paths of the major they choose. Students with more educated parents, especially… more →
Parental and Student Time Use Around the Academic Year
Topics: Families and CommunitiesWe demonstrate how mothers, fathers, and 15–17-year-old students alter their schedules around the K-12 academic year. Using regression discontinuity (RDD) methods, combined with dates on school year start and end dates by locality, we document several notable results. First, mothers are… more →
In School, Engaged, On-track? The Effect of the Pandemic on Student Attendance, Course Grades, and Grade Retention in North Carolina
Topics: Student LearningTags: Covid-19 recovery, EquityThe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ experiences in school were widespread. Early research show reductions in test scores across grade levels and student groups. This study extends research evidence to additional student outcomes – absences, course grades, and grad retention – and… more →
Forging a path to college persistence: An experimental evaluation of the Detroit Promise Path program
Stacey L. Brockman, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Alyssa Ratledge, Rebekah O’Donoghue, Micah Y. Baum, Brian A. Jacob.Detroit students who obtain a college degree overcome many obstacles to do so. This paper reports the results of a randomized evaluation of a program meant to provide support to low-income community college students. The Detroit Promise Path (DPP) program was designed to complement an existing… more →