K-12 Education
Immigration Enforcement Actions and Empty Desks: Persistent and Acute Attendance Effects
How do immigration enforcement actions (IEAs) affect student attendance, and through what channels? We use student-by-day administrative records from a mid-size school district to estimate the causal effect of heightened federal immigration enforcement following the January 2025 presidential… more →
The Effect of School-Based Health Centers on Adolescent Mental Health and Behavior
Adolescent mental health has experienced significant declines in the past decade, yet take-up of mental health services has remained low among adolescents. This paper examines whether localized access to mental health services has meaningful impacts on adolescent mental health and behavior. I… more →
Democratizing School Reform: Race, Participation, and Redistribution in Education
This paper examines a school-based participatory budgeting initiative as a form of race-conscious democratic design. Drawing on a multi-year study of Participatory Redistribution (PR) in middle schools, I analyze whether embedding deliberative structures into schools can empower racially… more →
Homelessness and Student Outcomes by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and School Level
A 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 →
Towards a Developmental Model of Democratic Family Rights Policy Regimes: Tracing Federal Literacy Policy, 1968-1990
By excavating submerged dynamics underlying literacy accountability policy, this historical case study conceptualizes its institutional logic and political drivers. Bridging and extending theorization in American political development and racial political behavior, I contribute an original… more →
The Politics of Administrative Ease: Public Access to Local Special Education Information
What political and administrative resources contribute to the realization of rights in the United States? We examine this puzzle in the context of rights to education for students with disabilities by measuring the administrative ease of accessing local special education information: the extent… more →
Cultural Relevance at Scale: The Effects of an Ethnic Studies Expansion on Academic Outcomes
Ethnic Studies is a culturally relevant curriculum designed to address the instructional needs of an increasingly diverse student population. However, evidence regarding its effectiveness at scale remains limited. This study evaluates the impact of district-wide implementation using a student-… more →
Nudging Parents out the Door: The Impacts of Parental Encouragement on School Choice and Test Scores
This study evaluates a large-scale SMS outreach program to engage caregivers of students in private primary schools in Kenya. Using a two-stage randomization design, we tested two types of weekly SMS messages: growth-mindset encouragement and personalized performance information. We find two… more →
Title I and IDEA as Complementary Federal Responses: Distinguishing Opportunity-Mediated and Opportunity-Independent Underachievement
Title I and IDEA are complementary federal responses to different sources of low achievement. Title I targets opportunity-mediated underachievement, while IDEA targets persistent underachievement for which deficits in ordinary educational opportunity are not the primary explanation. A simple… more →
The Reliability of Classroom Observations and Student Surveys in Non-Research Settings: Evidence from a Middle-Income Country
We present one of the first Generalizability studies of non-test measures of teaching effectiveness administered by practitioners in a middle-income country. The reliability of observations varies widely (from 0 to 0.75 on a 0-1 scale) and depends upon their context (whether they are conducted… more →
A Sandbox for Hard Choices: Using Simulation to Explore School Closure Scenarios and Their Consequences
School closures are often justified through seemingly neutral criteria such as enrollment or performance, but these metrics can unintentionally deepen educational disparities. This study uses a large urban district’s administrative data to simulate 5,040 closure scenarios, systematically varying… more →
The Expansion of Alternative Schools: Impact of Schools Targeting Lower Performing Students
Despite rising high school graduation rates in the US, a substantial portion of students do not obtain a high school degree. Alternative schools have emerged as a potential solution offering opportunities for credit recovery and flexible scheduling. Using variation in the timing and proximity of… more →
How Large are District Effects on Student Attendance? Implications for School Funding Based on Average Daily Attendance
Greater attendance rates in the K-12 grades demonstrate motivation and discipline and contribute to other desired educational outcomes such as cognitive development. A growing number of states incentivize school districts to increase attendance by allocating funding based on the average number… more →
Can We Save Failing Schools? Evidence From Los Angeles
Can investing in failing schools help them improve? This paper studies this question using a natural experiment based on a 2017 lawsuit settlement that allocated substantial resources to the lowest-performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Using a difference-in-… more →
Hold Harmless for Whom? The Impact of COVID Era Policies on School Funding, Teachers, and Students
This study evaluates the fiscal and academic consequences of New York City’s hold harmless policy during COVID-19, which aimed to stabilize school expenditures amid unexpected enrollment declines by restoring schools’ funding up to initial levels. We examine how school racial composition… more →
Americans’ Attitudes about Political Neutrality in Public Schools
This paper presents the results of a study of Americans’ attitudes about political neutrality in public schools. Using data from a nationally representative survey conducted in March of 2025, I find that Americans across the political spectrum largely oppose schools attempting to promote either… more →
The Effects of An Automatic Notification Tool to Increase Participation in Advanced High School Courses: Results from a Large-Scale Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial
Taking advanced courses in high school is associated with many positive high school and college outcomes. States and school districts are increasingly interested in more systematic approaches to identify qualified students for advanced course work. We developed an automatic notification tool,… more →
School Finance in the US
This 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 →
Math coursetaking trajectories in high school during the COVID-19 disruptions to schooling
Using student-level transcript data and information about instructional mode among public high school students in Massachusetts, this study examines the impact of disruptions to in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ math coursetaking trajectories. We find that rates of… more →
The Language of Closure: Examining Racial Differences in How A Community Discusses School Closure Metrics
School closures in urban districts disproportionately affect marginalized communities, yet community input often goes unanalyzed or is reduced to simple frequency counts. This study applies BERTopic, a neural topic modeling approach, to analyze 4,159 suggestions from 2,006 community members… more →