K-12 Education
Virtual Advising for High-Achieving High School Students
We examine whether virtual advising – college counseling using technology to communicate remotely – increases postsecondary enrollment in selective colleges. We test this approach using a sample of approximately 16,000 high-achieving, low- and middle-income students identified by the College… more →
Get Real! Inflation Adjustments of Education Finance Data
Use of education finance data is ubiquitous. Yet, because the academic calendar circumscribes two calendar years, researchers have linked the Consumer Price Index to three different dates: the Fall, Spring and academic fiscal years. We demonstrate that linking the CPI to these different academic… more →
Developing Ambitious Mathematics Instruction Through Web-Based Coaching: A Randomized Field Trial
This paper describes and evaluates a web-based coaching program designed to support teachers in implementing Common Core-aligned math instruction. Web-based coaching programs can be operated at relatively lower costs, are scalable, and make it more feasible to pair teachers with coaches who have… more →
Ready or Not? California's Early Assessment Program and the Transition to College
In this paper we investigate the impact of a statewide program aimed at better aligning K-12 to higher education and improving college readiness. We replicate an earlier study focused on the effects of this program at one campus by employing detailed administrative data on the census of… more →
Do Voucher Students Attain Higher Levels of Education? Extended Evidence from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the first modern private school choice program in the United States, has grown from 341 students attending 7 private schools in 1990 to 27,857 students attending 126 private schools in 2019. The MPCP has been subject to extensive study focused… more →
Local Democracy Matters: How Deliberative Culture Shapes Public Evaluations of Local Government and Local Government Performance
Is there democratic accountability to the public at the local level, and if so, how does it work? We know that a major part of democratic ability depends on citizens being able to properly evaluate government based on government performance, particularly at the local level. However, we know much… more →
The Effects of Career and Technical Education: Evidence from the Connecticut Technical High School System
We examine the effect of admission to 16 stand-alone technical high schools within the Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) on student educational and labor market outcomes. To identify the causal effect of admission on student outcomes, we exploit the fact that CTHSS utilizes a… more →
Nudges Don’t Work When the Benefits Are Ambiguous: Evidence from a High-Stakes Education Program
Dual-credit courses expose high school students to college-level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of dual-credit… more →
The Effects of Race to the Top School Turnaround in North Carolina
Federal education policies gave political and financial support for state education agencies to turnaround low-performing schools on an unprecedented scale. North Carolina’s ambitious program turned around over half of all schools nationwide that underwent turnaround funded by Race to the Top.… more →
Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education
New advances in neurobiology are revealing that brain development and the learning it enables are directly dependent on social-emotional experience. Growing bodies of research reveal the importance of socially-triggered epigenetic contributions to brain development and brain network… more →
Does a successful randomized experiment lead to successful policy? Project Challenge and what happened in Tennessee after Project STAR
Evidence-based policy is the practice of basing policy decisions on rigorous research evidence, such as randomized experiments. But it is unclear how often evidence-based decisions produce more effective policy. We evaluate an evidence-based policy implemented in 1989-93, after the state of… more →
The Next Generation of State Reforms to Improve their Lowest Performing Schools: An Evaluation of North Carolina’s School Transformation Initiative
In contrast to prior federally mandated school reforms, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows states more discretion in reforming their lowest performing schools, removes requirements to disrupt the status quo, and does not allocate substantial additional funds. Using a regression… more →
School Segregation in the Era of Color-blind Jurisprudence and School Choice
The decades-long resistance to federally imposed school desegregation entered a new phase at the turn of the new century, when federal courts stopped pushing racial balance as a remedy for past segregation, adopting in its place a color-blind approach in judging local school districts’… more →
The Impact of Targeted vs. General Education Investments: Evidence from Special Education and English Language Learners in Boston Charter Schools
Using novel variation in special education and English Language Learner classification from admissions lotteries, I find that students can achieve large academic gains without specialized services. Enrolling in a Boston charter school doubles the likelihood that students lose their special… more →
Does achievement rise fastest with school choice, school resources, or family resources? Chile from 2002 to 2013
Debates in education policy draw on different theories about how to raise children’s achievement. The school competition theory holds that achievement rises when families can choose among competing schools. The school resource theory holds that achievement rises with school… more →
Teacher Skill Development: Evidence from Performance Ratings by Principals
We examine the dynamic nature of teacher skill development using panel data on principals’ subjective performance ratings of teachers. Past research on teacher productivity improvement has focused primarily on one important but narrow measure of performance: teachers’ value-added to student… more →
Turnover at the Top: Estimating the Effects of Principal Turnover on Student, Teacher, and School Outcomes
One in five schools loses its principal each year. Despite the prevalence of principal turnover, little empirical research has examined its effects on school outcomes. Because principal turnover may occur in response to or contemporaneous with a downturn in student achievement, the effect of a… more →
English Learner Labeling: How English Learner Status Shapes Teacher Perceptions of Student Skills & the Moderating Role of Bilingual Instructional Settings
Prior research has shown that EL classification is consequential for students, however, less is known about how EL classification impacts students’ outcomes. In this study, we examine one hypothesized mechanism: teacher perceptions. Using nationally-representative data (ECLS-K:2011), we use… more →
The Added Value of Latinx and Black Teachers for Latinx and Black Students: Implications for the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act
A research synthesis points to the added-value—benefits to social and emotional development, as well as learning outcomes—for students of color taught by teachers of color. Given ongoing education debates, policymakers can use this evidence base to craft legislation aimed at… more →
Reforming Teacher Pension Plans: The Case of Kansas, the 1st Teacher Cash Balance Plan
The ongoing crisis in teacher pension funding has led states to consider various reforms in plan design, to replace the traditional benefit formulas, based on years of service and final average salary (FAS). One such design is a cash balance (CB) plan, long deployed in the private sector,… more →