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Poverty
Aspirations, Education, and Extreme Poverty
Topics: Families and CommunitiesAspirations shape important future-oriented behaviors, including educational investment. Higher family aspirations for children predict better educational outcomes in multiple developing countries. Unfortunately, aspirations sometimes outstrip people's ability to pursue them. We study the… more →
The Segregation of Students by Income in Public Schools
Topics: Families and CommunitiesOver the past three decades, children from low-income families and those from more affluent families have increasingly been attending different public schools. While recent work has helped us understand patterns of income segregation between districts and schools within districts, we know very… more →
The Opioid Crisis and Educational Performance
Topics: Student Well-BeingThe opioid crisis is widely recognized as one of the most important public health emergencies of our time, and an issue that is particularly acute for rural communities. We propose a simple model of how opioids in a community can impact the education outcomes of children based on both the extent… more →
Moving On Up? A Virtual School, Student Mobility, and Achievement
Topics: School ChoiceVirtual charter schools provide full-time, tuition-free K-12 education through internet-based instruction. Although virtual schools offer a personalized learning experience, most research suggests these schools are negatively associated with achievement. Few studies account for differential… more →
Comprehensive Support and Student Success: Can Out of School Time Make a Difference?
StudentU is a comprehensive program that provides education, nutrition, and social support services to disadvantaged students outside of the regular school day. In this paper I investigate the effects of this multi-year program on the early high school outcomes of participating students by… more →
Experimentally Estimated Impacts of School Vouchers on Educational Attainments of Moderately and Severely Disadvantaged Students
Topics: School ChoiceAlthough qualitative research suggests that school choice and other interventions are more beneficial for moderately disadvantaged than severely deprived students, the subject has barely been explored by quantitative studies with either observational or experimental designs. We estimate… more →
Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap
Topics: Student LearningTags: Assessment, PovertyRising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socio-economic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP, Main-NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA that are psychometrically linked over time, we trace trends in achievement for U.S.… more →
Air Filters, Pollution and Student Achievement
Topics: Student LearningTags: Poverty, Learning environmentsThis paper identifies the achievement impact of installing air filters in classrooms for the first time. To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common… more →
How much can we remedy very low learning levels in rural parts of low-income countries? Impact and generalizability of a multi-pronged para-teacher intervention from a cluster-randomized trial in The Gambia
Alex Eble, Chris Frost, Alpha Camara, Baboucarr Bouy, Momodou Bah, Maitri Sivaraman, Jenny Hsieh, Chitra Jayanty, Tony Brady, Piotr Gawron, Peter Boone, Diana Elbourne.Topics: Student LearningTags: Rural education, PovertyDespite large schooling and learning gains in many developing countries, children in highly deprived areas are often unlikely to achieve even basic literacy and numeracy. We study how much of this problem can be resolved using a multi-pronged intervention combining several distinct interventions… more →
Breaking the Cycle? Intergenerational Effects of an Anti-Poverty Program in Early Childhood
Despite substantial evidence that resources and outcomes are transmitted across generations, there has been limited inquiry into the extent to which anti-poverty programs actually disrupt the cycle of bad outcomes. We explore how the effects of the United States’ largest early childhood program… more →
Keeping kids in care: What makes a difference in state CCDF policy?
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceChild care subsidies play an important role in stabilizing parental employment and helping low- income families access care. With limited federal requirements under CCDBG, states developed divergent subsidy program policies.
Experimentally Estimated Impacts of School Voucher on Educational Attainments of Moderately and Severely Disadvantaged Students
Topics: School ChoiceEstimates of school voucher impacts on educational attainment have yet to explore heterogeneities in socioeconomic status among disadvantaged minority students. We theorize reasons for these heterogeneities and then estimate experimentally the differential impacts of voucher offers on college… more →
Disparities and Discrimination in Student Discipline by Race and Family Income
Topics: Student Well-BeingBlack and poor students are suspended from U.S. schools at higher rates than white and non-poor students. While the existence of these disparities has been clear, the causes of the disparities have not. We use a novel dataset to examine how and where discipline disparities arise. By… more →
Spending More on the Poor? A Comprehensive Summary of State-Specific Responses to School Finance Reforms from 1990–2014
Tags: School reform, PovertySixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs), a combination of court-ordered and legislative reforms, have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. In this study, we estimate the effects of SFRs on revenues and expenditures between… more →
Spillover Impacts on Education from Employment Guarantees
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernancePrograms that provide lower-skill employment are a popular anti-poverty strategy in developing countries, with India's employment-guarantee program (MGNREGA) employing adults in 23% of Indian households. A potential concern is that guaranteeing lower-skill employment opportunities may… more →
Making a Match: How Successful High-Poverty Schools Hire Teachers
Effective teacher hiring is fundamental to improving schools and yet few studies investigate this process. In this exploratory study of six successful, high-poverty schools (three charter, three district) in one Massachusetts city, we analyze the policy contexts that influenced hiring and… more →
The Unwavering SES Achievement Gap: Trends in U.S. Student Performance
Topics: Student LearningConcerns about the breadth of the U.S. income distribution and limited intergenerational mobility have led to a focus on educational achievement gaps by socio-economic status (SES). Uintertemporally linked assessments from NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA, we trace the achievement of U.S.
The Effect of the Community Eligibility Provision on the Ability of Free and Reduced-Price Meal Data to Identify Disadvantaged Students
Topics: MethodsTags: PovertyThe Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a policy change to the federally-administered National School Lunch Program that allows schools serving low-income populations to classify all students as eligible for free meals, regardless of individual circumstances. This has implications for the… more →
Government Privatization and Political Participation: The Case of Charter Schools
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceGovernments around the world have privatized public services in the name of efficiency and citizen empowerment, but some argue that privatization could also affect citizen participation in democratic governance. We explore this possibility by estimating the impact of charter schools (which are… more →
Delayed Benefits: Effects of California School District Bond Elections on Achievement by Socioeconomic Status
Contradictory evidence of the relationship between education funding and student achievement could reflect heterogeneous effects by revenue source or student characteristics. This study examines potential heterogeneous effects of a particular type of local revenue – bond funds for capital… more →