K-12 Education
Deeper Roots Before the Storm: Utilizing Machine Learning to Alert School Districts of Permanent School Closures
The increasing rate of permanent school closures in U.S. public school districts presents unprecedented challenges for administrators and communities alike. This study develops an early-warning indicator model to predict mass closure events - defined as a district closing at least 10% of its… more →
Bridging Literacy Gaps: The Impact of AI-Driven Personalised Learning on Reading Skills and Educational Equity
Persistent literacy skills deficits hinder educational attainment, limit labour market opportunities, and exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities. This paper evaluates the causal effect of an AI-driven Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) program implemented by the Government of Madrid, which features… more →
The Four Day Gamble: The Quasi-Experimental Effects of Four-Day School Week Adoption on Teacher, Principal, and Paraprofessional Staff Turnover and District Financial Outcomes
Four-day school week (4DSW) adoption is an increasingly popular policy, particularly for rural districts that are seeking to reduce educator turnover and district expenditures. Using a staggered treatment event study design, I am among the first to estimate the quasi-experimental effects of 4DSW… more →
Using Large Language Models to Analyze Preservice Teacher Feedback and Reflections During Clinical Teaching
Clinical teaching is vital for preservice teacher (PST) development, yet field supervisors’ roles are understudied. This study analyzes over 11,000 supervisor evaluations and PST reflections from a Texas teacher preparation program using large language models to extract measures of feedback… more →
School-based language, math, and reading interventions for executive functions in children and adolescents: A systematic review
Executive functions are a set of cognitive skills and processes used when directing behaviour towards the attainment of a certain goal. A large literature has documented positive associations between executive functions and a variety of desirable outcomes throughout life, including academic… more →
Puzzling Over Declining Academic Achievement
Many are concerned about the large decline in K-12 student achievement since 2019. And rightly so, given what it signals about student learning and later life outcomes. Less noted is the pre-pandemic sustained decline in student achievement growth that followed 30 years of increases. We examine… more →
Remote Learning in 2020-21 and Student Attendance Since the COVID-19 Pandemic
Student attendance declined during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. There is little evidence explaining the decline. This study examines the role of remote learning. In Michigan, compared to students never provided with remote-only learning in 2020-21, students… more →
Separation of Church and State Curricula? Examining Public and Religious Private School Textbooks
Curricula impart knowledge, instill values, and shape collective memory. Despite growing public funding for religious schools through U.S. school choice programs, little is known about what they teach. We examine textbooks from public schools, religious private schools, and home schools,… more →
From Sentence-Corrections to Deeper Dialogue: Qualitative Insights from LLM and Teacher Feedback on Student Writing
Effective writing feedback is a powerful tool for enhancing student learning, encouraging revision, and increasing motivation and agency. Yet, teachers face many challenges that prevent them from consistently providing effective writing feedback. Recent advances in generative artificial… more →
McCleary at Twelve: Examining Policy Designs Following Court-Mandated School Finance Reform in Washington State
All fifty U.S. state constitutions include language that guarantees residents’ access to a free public education. Plaintiffs in all but two states have brought litigation challenging state school finance systems, and in over half the cases, judges ruled the systems unconstitutional and mandated… more →
The Impact of School District Turnaround on Postsecondary Outcomes: Evidence from Lawrence, Massachusetts
Limited research examines the impact of accountability interventions on outcomes beyond test-based measures of short-term academic achievement. We examine the effects of the 2012 state takeover and districtwide turnaround of Massachusetts’ Lawrence Public Schools—a district serving a majority-… more →
Lifting Up Attendance in Rural Districts: A Multi-Site Trial of a Personalized Messaging Campaign
Student absenteeism has remained high following the COVID-19 pandemic and districts need low-cost strategies to improve attendance. In 2020-21, the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks piloted a promising personalized messaging intervention in 8 rural districts in New York and… more →
The Impacts of Grade Retention Policy With Minimal Retention
State laws that mandate in-grade retention for struggling readers are widespread in the U.S., covering 34% of public-school third graders in 2023-24. This study investigates the impacts of Michigan’s third-grade reading law on subsequent test scores and school progress outcomes for the 2020-21… more →
School Choice and Household Participation in School District Politics
We examine whether policies that enable families to opt out of locally provided public services are associated with reduced political participation. Our study is focused on two types of school choice policy in Michigan: inter-district choice and charter schools. Do parents who send their… more →
From Population Growth to Demographic Scarcity: Emerging Challenges to Global Primary Education Provision in the Twenty-first Century
Demographic pressures are reshaping the challenges faced by primary education systems around the world in ways that carry significant implications for the landscape of global educational inequality. We first demonstrate highly disequalizing demographic pressures on the world's educational… more →
New Places, New Players, a New Politics of Education
In the last decade, many political conflicts over K-12 education in the United States have increasingly divided along party lines. While it may seem like this development represents a sudden and surprising departure from a long-standing tradition of bipartisanship, I argue that the politics of… more →
Searching for the Queen’s Gambit: An Exploratory Analysis of Male-Female Ratings Gaps in U.S. Chess
We examine the origin and evolution of male-female rating gaps for young chess players using two decades of data from the U.S. Chess Federation, the national chess association that tracks competitive tournament play and provides ratings for U.S. chess players. An important feature of our… more →
Bring in the Subs: A Mixed-Method Investigation of the Substitute Teacher Labor Market in Michigan
Substitute teachers play a crucial role in how schools can function, yet little research has focused on understanding the contours of the substitute labor market. This paper uses a mixed method approach, including a survey of a random sample of the population of substitute teachers, state… more →
Costly Withdrawals Reduce Future College-Going for Low-Income Students: Evidence from Return of Title IV Funds
Governments must strike a balance between promoting access to financial aid while at the same time remaining good stewards of taxpayer funds by preventing fraudulent access. This paper focuses on one of the largest-scale and most consequential policies determining whether students maintain… more →
The Impact of Tutor Gender Match on Girls’ STEM Interest, Engagement, and Performance
Persistent gender disparities in STEM fields, even when young girls perform as well in STEM in school as boys, highlight the potential importance of preconceived views of STEM work in these difference and the potential need for role models to upend these views. In this study, we investigate… more →