Out-of-School and Alternative Education
Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-Induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time
We use high frequency internet search data to study in real time how US households sought out online learning resources as schools closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. By April 2020, nationwide search intensity for both school- and parent-centered online learning resources had roughly doubled… more →
Year-Round School Calendars: Effects on Summer Learning, Achievement, Parents, Teachers, and Property Values
Year-round school calendars take the usual 175-180 instruction days of the school year and redistribute them, replacing the usual schedule – nine months on, three months off – with a more “balanced” schedule of short instruction periods alternating with shorter breaks across all four seasons of… more →
Can Camp Get You Into a Good Secondary School? A Field Experiment of Targeted Instruction in Kenya
Access to quality secondary schooling can be life-changing for students in developing contexts. In Kenya, entrance to such schools has historically been determined by performance on a high-stakes exam. Understandably then, preparation for this exam is a high priority for Kenyan families and… more →
Breaking the Cycle? Intergenerational Effects of an Anti-Poverty Program in Early Childhood
Despite substantial evidence that resources and outcomes are transmitted across generations, there has been limited inquiry into the extent to which anti-poverty programs actually disrupt the cycle of bad outcomes. We explore how the effects of the United States’ largest early childhood program… more →
Forced to Redshirt: Quasi-Experimental Impacts of Delayed Kindergarten Entry
We provide causal estimates of the effects of delayed kindergarten entry on achievement outcomes by exploiting a policy change in the birthdate enrollment cutoff in North Carolina that forced children born in a six-week window to redshirt. Using multiple peer group comparisons, we identify… more →
The Effects of Full-day Pre-kindergarten: Experimental Evidence of Impacts on Children’s School Readiness
This study is a randomized control trial of full- versus half-day pre-kindergarten in a school district near Denver, Colorado. Four-year-old children were randomly assigned an offer of half-day (four days/week) or full-day (five days/week) pre-k that increased class time by over 600 hours. The… more →