K-12 Education
The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on School Engagement: Evidence from 287(g) Programs in North Carolina
During the past fifteen years, immigration enforcement increased dramatically in the U.S. interior. There is a growing recognition that immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior has spillover effects onto U.S. citizens. I examine the impacts of a type of partnership between Immigration and… more →
A Half Century of Progress in U. S. Student Achievement: Agency and Flynn Effects; Ethnic and SES Differences
Principals (policymakers) disagree as to whether U. S. student performance has changed over the past half century. To inform conversations, agents administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math (m) and reading (rd) in 160 survey waves to national probability samples of cohorts… more →
Direct and Spillover Effects of Limiting Minority Student Access to Special Education
Black students are about 1.5 times more likely to be receiving special education (SpEd) services relative to white students. While there is concern that this implies some black students are inappropriately placed in SpEd, the impacts of the disproportionate representation of minority students in… more →
The Lingering Legacy of Redlining on School Funding, Diversity, and Performance
Between 1935-1940 the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) assigned A (minimal risk) to D (hazardous) grades to neighborhoods that reflected their lending risk from previously issued loans and visualized these grades on color-coded maps, which arguably influenced banks and other mortgage lenders… more →
The Dynamics and Measurement of High School Homelessness and Achievement Disparities
There is no national consensus on how school districts calculate high school achievement disparities between students who experience homelessness and those who do not. Using administrative student-level data from a mid-sized public school district in the Southern United States, we show that… more →
“That's Against Your Contract?”: Exploring the Complexity of Collective Bargaining Tensions
This case study offers an organizational perspective on the ways in which a collective bargaining agreement shaped the administrative functioning of schools within an urban district. The data demonstrate how rational choice assumptions failed to account for the everyday site interactions between… more →
Heroes, Villains, or Something In Between? How “Right to Work” Policies Affect Teachers, Students, and Education Policymaking
Although the Janus v. AFCSME (2018) decision fundamentally changed the institutional context for U.S. teachers’ unions by placing all public school teachers in a “Right to Work” (RTW) framework, little research exists to conceptualize the effects of such policies that hinder… more →
The Distribution of School Spending Impacts
We examine all known "credibly causal" studies to explore the distribution of the causal effects of public K-12 school spending on student outcomes in the United States. For each of the 31 included studies, we compute the same marginal spending effect parameter estimate. Precision-weighted… more →
All States Close but Red Districts Reopen: The Politics of In-Person Schooling during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic created enormous challenges for public education. We assess the role of political factors and public health in state and local education decisions, especially the continuation of learning during COVID-19. Using an original dataset of state education policies since the start… more →
Does Where Students Come From Affect Where Teachers Go?
We show that fade out biases value-added estimates at the teacher-level. To do so, we use administrative data from North Carolina and show that teachers' value-added depend on the quality of the teacher that preceded them. Value-added estimators that control for fade out feature no such teacher-… more →
Equity- oriented accountability for charter schools: Lessons from Massachusetts
Because of the many special characteristics of charter schools, policy makers who aim to promote a system of charters schools that ensures fair access to, and fair treatment of, disadvantaged students will need a public accountability system oriented, at least in part, to equity concerns.… more →
School District Revenue Shocks, Resource Allocations, and Student Achievement: Evidence from the Universe of U.S. Wind Energy Installations
We examine the impact of wind energy installation on school district finances and student achievement using data on the timing, location, and capacity of the universe of U.S. installations from 1995 through 2017. Wind energy installation substantially increased district revenues, causing large… more →
Identifying and Producing Effective Teachers
Teachers are among the most important school-provided determinants of student success. Effective teachers improve students’ test scores as well as their attendance, behavior, and earnings as adults. However, students do not enjoy equal access to effective teachers. This article reviews some of… more →
Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring and Student Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the governments of most countries ordered the closure of schools, potentially exacerbating existing learning gaps. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention implemented in Italian middle schools that provides free individual tutoring online… more →
A Strengths-Based, Culturally Responsive Family Intervention Improves Latino Kindergarteners’ Vocabulary and Approaches to Learning
Food routines play a special role in Latino families. Using a cluster randomized trial with 248 children (M age = 67 months) from 13 schools, this study investigated the impact of a four-week family program designed to capitalize on food routines in improving Latino kindergarteners’ outcomes in… more →
Building Experience and Retention: The influence of principal tenure on teacher retention rates
This study investigates the influence of principal tenure on the retention rates of the teachers they hire over time. We analyzed the hiring practices and teacher retention rates of 11,717 Texas principals from 1999 to 2017 employing both individual and year fixed effects. Main findings indicate… more →
The Effect of School District Consolidation on Student Achievement: Evidence from Arkansas
School district consolidation is one of the most widespread education reforms of the last century, but surprisingly little research has directly investigated its effectiveness. To examine the impact of consolidation on student achievement, this study takes advantage of a policy that requires the… more →
Achievement Gaps in the Wake of COVID-19
A survey targeting education researchers conducted in November, 2020 provides both short- and longer-term predictions of how much achievement gaps between low- and high-income students in U.S elementary schools will change as a result of COVID-related disruptions to schooling and family life.… more →
Is Engaging Online Learning Possible? A Study of an Innovative National Virtual Summer Program
We study an early effort amid the Covid-19 pandemic to develop new approaches to virtually serving students, supporting teachers, and promoting equity. This five-week, largely synchronous, summer program served 11,769 rising 4th-9thgraders. “Mentor teachers” provided PD and videos of themselves… more →
Improving Average Treatment Effect Estimates in Small-Scale Randomized Controlled Trials
Researchers often include covariates when they analyze the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), valuing the increased precision of the estimates over the potential of inducing small-sample bias when doing so. In this paper, we develop a sufficient condition which ensures that the… more →