K-12 Education
Peeking into the Black Box of School Turnaround: A Formal Test of Mediators and Suppressors
A growing body of research evaluates the effects of turnaround on chronically low-performing schools. We extend this research to formally test factors that either mediate or suppress the effects of two turnaround initiatives in Tennessee: the Achievement School District (ASD) and local… more →
The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers
We examine the long-run impacts of having a same-race teacher. First, we leverage data from the Tennessee STAR class-size experiment to show that black students randomly assigned to a black teacher in grades K-3 are 5 percentage points (7%) more likely to graduate from high school and 4… more →
The Formalized Processes Districts Use to Evaluate Mathematics Textbooks
Textbooks are a widely used educational intervention that can affect student achievement, and the marginal cost of choosing a more effective textbook is typically small. However, we know little about how textbooks get from the publisher to the classroom. We use a lens of institutional theory and… more →
Do Health Insurance Mandates Spillover to Education? Evidence from Michigan’s Autism Insurance Mandate
Social programs and mandates are usually studied in isolation even though they often interact closely with each other. Given the immense recent changes to health insurance systems, there is much potential for spillover effects to other systems in which health plays a large role. In this study,… more →
A Tale of Two Types of Schools: An Exploration of How School Working Conditions Influence Black Male Teacher Turnover
This phenomenological study draws on semi-structured interviews with 27 Black male teachers across 14 schools in an urban school district—seven schools with three or more Black male teachers and seven schools with one Black male teacher. Consistent with theories about teacher turnover, findings… more →
Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Alternative Sample Selection Corrections
We use a natural experiment to evaluate sample selection correction methods' performance. In 2007, Michigan began requiring that all students take a college entrance exam, increasing the exam-taking rate from 64 to 99%. We apply different selection correction methods, using different sets of… more →
School Finance Reforms, Teachers’ Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources
School finance reforms caused some of the most dramatic increases in intergovernmental aid from states to local governments in U.S. history. We examine whether teachers’ unions affected the fraction of reform-induced state aid that passed through to local spending and the allocation of these… more →
The Unwavering SES Achievement Gap: Trends in U.S. Student Performance
Concerns about the breadth of the U.S. income distribution and limited intergenerational mobility have led to a focus on educational achievement gaps by socio-economic status (SES). Uintertemporally linked assessments from NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA, we trace the achievement of U.S.
The Effect of the Community Eligibility Provision on the Ability of Free and Reduced-Price Meal Data to Identify Disadvantaged Students
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a policy change to the federally-administered National School Lunch Program that allows schools serving low-income populations to classify all students as eligible for free meals, regardless of individual circumstances. This has implications for the… more →
Is Education Consumption or Investment? Implications for School Competition
Friedman (1955) argued that giving parents freedom to choose schools would improve education. His argument was simple and compelling because it extended results from markets for consumer goods to education. We review the evidence, which yields surprisingly mixed results on Friedman's prediction… more →
Heat and Learning
We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning may mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer… more →
Government Privatization and Political Participation: The Case of Charter Schools
Governments around the world have privatized public services in the name of efficiency and citizen empowerment, but some argue that privatization could also affect citizen participation in democratic governance. We explore this possibility by estimating the impact of charter schools (which are… more →
School District Operational Spending and Student Outcomes: Evidence from Tax Elections in Seven States
We use close tax elections to estimate the impact of school district funding increases on operational spending and student outcomes across seven states. Districts with passing levies directed new revenue toward support services and instructor salaries but did not increase teacher staffing levels… more →
Policy Implementation, Principal Agency, and Strategic Action: Improving Teaching Effectiveness in New York City Middle Schools
Ten years ago, the reform of teacher evaluation was touted as a mechanism to improve teacher effectiveness. In response, virtually every state redesigned its teacher evaluation system. Recently, a growing narrative suggests these reforms failed and should be abandoned. This response may be… more →
Delayed Benefits: Effects of California School District Bond Elections on Achievement by Socioeconomic Status
Contradictory evidence of the relationship between education funding and student achievement could reflect heterogeneous effects by revenue source or student characteristics. This study examines potential heterogeneous effects of a particular type of local revenue – bond funds for capital… more →
Interpreting Effect Sizes of Education Interventions
Researchers commonly interpret effect sizes by applying benchmarks proposed by Cohen over a half century ago. However, effects that are small by Cohen’s standards are large relative to the impacts of most field-based interventions. These benchmarks also fail to consider important differences in… more →
Engaging Teachers: Measuring the Impact of Teachers on Student Attendance in Secondary School
Teachers’ impact on student long-run success is only partially explained by their contributions to students’ short-run academic performance. For this study, we explore a second dimension of teacher effectiveness by creating measures of teachers’ contributions to student class-attendance. We find… more →