K-12 Education
The Effects of State-Level Loan Forgiveness Policies on Teacher Supply
The waning prestige of the teaching profession has fueled a decline in the number of aspiring teachers entering preparation programs, compounding staffing challenges already inherent to many schools. In this paper, I show that state-level loan forgiveness policies modestly increase the number of… more →
Unpacking Racial Disparities in School Spending: Why “progressiveness” and “comparability” are not enough
Studies of racial and economic disparities in school funding typically rely on simple spending comparisons or "progressiveness" measures that ignore variation in the cost of achieving common educational outcomes. This article argues that such approaches essentially ignore how much it costs… more →
Remediation or Roadblock? The Effects of Failing Virginia's Accountability Exams
Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) system requires students to pass end-of-course exams to earn verified credits needed for high school graduation. Scoring below the passing cutoff may create a barrier to completing a high school degree, but it also triggers state-mandated remediation, which… more →
Estimating the Overall Effects of Statewide Early Literacy Policies: Evidence from Michigan
This paper evaluates the impacts of Michigan's statewide early literacy reform using a synthetic difference-in-differences approach. We estimate the policy’s effects on student achievement and grade retention and compare them to statewide literacy reforms in South Carolina and Mississippi. We… more →
Bidirectional associations between executive function and social behavior across childhood: A registered report using a nationally representative sample
Executive function (EF) refers to a set of cognitive skills involved in deliberate, goal-oriented behavior. Although research has established links between children’s EF and aspects of their social skills, it remains unclear how EF skills are related to specific social behaviors, such as… more →
Parents’ Biased Beliefs and Competitive Investments in Education: A Field Experiment
Using a field experiment in China, we demonstrate that parental investment decisions are affected by their beliefs about their peers’ investment levels, and that they often hold biased beliefs about these levels. When provided information about the true distribution of tutoring hours invested… more →
Virtual Tutoring with Computer-Assisted Learning: An Experiment in Take-Up and Learning
We explore the efficacy of an online after-school tutoring program that complements teacher-provided computer-assisted learning practice. The aim is to scaffold students struggling with online Khan Academy practice at school with low-cost, one-on-one virtual supervision for about an hour a week… more →
Making AI Tutoring Productive: Evidence from a Mastery-Based Math Practice Experiment
Large language models (LLMs) can make tutoring more scalable, but only if students use them to reason through mistakes rather than avoid effort. We study this question in a randomized field experiment with more than 6,000 middle-school students in Hamilton County Schools using NUMI, a research-… more →
One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment
Generative AI has been promoted as the technology that could transform education by providing every student a personal tutor. We provide some of the first large-scale experimental evidence, from a two-year cluster randomized trial in 18 Tennessee middle schools in which randomly assigned… more →
Ethnic Studies Courses Across California High Schools: A Mixed-Method Analysis of Teacher-Intended Curricula
Ethnic Studies courses, which center the counternarratives of racialized communities, are rapidly expanding across California in advance of a high school graduation requirement for the class of 2029-30. However, content and pedagogical guidance for practitioners remains limited. To learn how… more →
The Role of Career Advising in High School in Shaping the Aspirations of First-Generation Students
College aspirations often form by 8th grade, yet first-generation students—those whose parents lack post-secondary education—miss out on resources continuing-generation peers use to make informed decisions about their futures. School-based career advising can help fill this gap. Using 2018 PISA… more →
Translating Policy into Opportunity: School Counselors and the Implementation of CTE-Focused Dual Enrollment Pathways
Dual enrollment programs have expanded rapidly in the United States as a mechanism to improve college readiness, accelerate time to credential, and support postsecondary transitions. Yet empirical research on dual enrollment has largely centered on academic coursework offered through community… more →
A Systematic Review of Research Designs Used to Evaluate State and Locally Funded Pre-K Programs
Expansions of state and locally funded pre-k programs in recent decades have been promoted by advocates citing strong research support. However, questions have been raised about how supportive the research base actually is. We conducted a systematic review of pre-k evaluation studies (from 2000-… more →
Who Belongs in Math? Gendered Peer Math Beliefs and Girls' Gender Beliefs, Math Beliefs, and Achievement
This paper studies how exposure to gendered peer math beliefs shapes girls' gender-math beliefs, their own math beliefs, and mathematics achievement. I exploit quasi-random variation in girls' exposure to peer math beliefs generated by random classroom assignment at entry into Chinese middle… more →
“Can we fight this fight?”: How Racial Politics Shape the Implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education Teaching Standards
In this study, we investigate the role of teacher education (TE) programs in filtering the implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education teaching guidelines in Pennsylvania. Drawing on a comparative case study of three TE programs across diverse institutional and political… more →
Unpacking Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in a Large-Scale Dropout-Prevention Experiment
Timely high school completion is a critical step in successful transitions to post-secondary schooling and the labor market. This randomized controlled trial, deployed in two urban, disadvantaged school districts, tests the effectiveness of a mature and comprehensive student-support program on… more →
Tracking to Retain Higher-Income Students: Evidence from the Addition of Advanced Courses
Public schools may introduce academic tracks to attract or retain higher-income students. The role of intra-school policies in shaping higher-income families’ demand for public schools has been underexplored. Using variation in the timing of advanced course introductions in Texas high schools, I… more →
Racial Status Threat and Anti-DEI Efforts in Local School Districts
This study draws on political science theory to analyze how perceived status threats to White social dominance influence local educational politics. We examine the relationship between racial status threat (RST) and the rise of anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideas (contentious… more →
The Effect of Retention Threat on Student Learning Gains: Evidence from Ohio
Grade retention policies create incentives for students to make adequate progress ahead of evaluation. The threat of retention thus has the potential to affect all students’ academic outcomes, increasing achievement especially among students with test scores near the retention policy’s threshold… more →
The Geography of Gifted Education: Exploring School and Neighborhood Predictors of Access to Gifted & Talented Programs in New York City
Black and Hispanic students participate in gifted education at lower rates than their share of general education public school enrollment would suggest, including within New York City's Gifted and Talented (G&T) admissions process. Debates over this disparity focus on how students are… more →