Student Learning
My Brother’s Keeper? The Impact of Targeted Educational Supports
The My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Challenge developed by President Obama supports communities that promote civic initiatives designed to improve the educational and economic opportunities specifically for young men of color. In Oakland, California, the MBK educational initiative features the African… more →
The Impact of Low-Ability Peers on Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Outcomes: Random Assignment Evidence on the Effects and Operating Channels
This paper presents new experimental estimates of the impact of low-ability peers on own outcomes using nationally representative data from China. We exploit the random assignment of students to junior high school classrooms and find that the proportion of low-ability peers, defined as having… more →
Strengthening STEM Instruction in Schools: Learning from Research
More than half of U.S. children fail to meet proficiency standards in mathematics and science in fourth grade. Teacher professional development and curriculum improvement are two of the primary levers that school leaders and policymakers use to improve children’s science, technology, engineering… more →
Self-Management Skills and Student Achievement Gains: Evidence from California’s CORE Districts
Existing research on self-management skills shows that measures of self-management predict student success. However, these conclusions are based on small samples or narrowly defined self-management measures. Using a rich longitudinal dataset of 221,840 fourth through seventh grade students, this… more →
Trends in Children’s Academic Skills at School Entry: 2010 to 2017
Students’ level of academic skills at school entry are a strong predictor of later academic success, and focusing on improving these skills during the preschool years has been a priority during the past ten years. Evidence from two prior nationally representative studies indicated that incoming… more →
STEM Instruction Improvement Programs Improve Student Outcomes
How should teachers spend their STEM-focused professional learning time? To answer this question, we analyzed a recent wave of rigorous new studies of STEM instructional improvement programs. We found that programs work best when focused on building knowledge teachers can use during instruction… more →
The Short- and Long-Run Impacts of Secondary School Absences
We provide novel evidence on the causal impacts of student absences in middle and high school on state test scores, course grades, and educational attainment using a rich administrative dataset that tracks the date and class period of each absence. We use two similar but distinct identification… more →
Effects of the Flipped Classroom: Evidence from a Randomized Trial
In a flipped classroom, an increasingly popular pedagogical model, students view a video lecture at home and work on exercises with the instructor during class time. Advocates of the flipped classroom claim the practice not only improves student achievement, but also ameliorates the achievement… 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 →
Complementarities between Early Educational Intervention and Later Educational Quality? A Systematic Review of the Sustaining Environments Hypothesis
The sustaining environments hypothesis refers to the popular idea, stemming from theories in developmental, cognitive, and educational psychology, that the long-term success of early educational interventions is contingent on the quality of the subsequent learning environment. Several studies… 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 Effects of Special Education on the Academic Performance of Students with Learning Disabilities
In the forty plus years since passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), special education has grown in the number of students and amount spent on services. Despite this growth, the academic performance of students with disabilities (SWDs) remains troubling low… more →
Teachers, Schools, and Pre-K Effect Persistence: An Examination of the Sustaining Environment Hypothesis
The sustaining environments thesis hypothesizes that PreK effects are more likely to persist into later grades if children experience high-quality learning environments in the years subsequent to PreK. This study tests this hypothesis using data from a statewide PreK randomized experiment in… more →
School's Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities
Summer learning loss (SLL) is a familiar and much-studied phenomenon, yet new concerns that measurement artifacts distorted canonical SLL findings create a need to revisit basic research on SLL. Though race/ethnicity and SES only account for about 4% of the variance in SLL, nearly all prior work… more →
How important are beliefs about gender differences in math ability? Transmission across generations and impacts on child outcomes
We study the transmission of beliefs about gender differences in math ability from adults to children and how this affects girls’ academic performance relative to boys. We exploit randomly assigned variation in the proportion of a child’s middle school classmates whose parents believe boys are… more →
Accountability-Driven School Reform: Are There Unintended Effects on Younger Children in Untested Grades?
Test-based accountability pressures have been shown to result in transferring less effective teachers into untested early grades and more effective teachers to tested grades. In this paper, we evaluate whether a state initiative to turnaround its lowest performing schools reproduced a similar… more →
The Play’s the Thing: Experimentally Examining the Social and Cognitive Effects of School Field Trips to Live Theater Performances
Field trips to see theater performances are a long-standing educational practice, however, there is little systematic evidence demonstrating educational benefits. This article describes the results of five random assignment experiments spanning two years where school groups were assigned by… 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.
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 →
A Reanalysis of Impacts of the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program
We present a reanalysis of the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program (TNVPK), a state-funded program designed to promote the school readiness of 4-year-olds from low-income families. Oversubscribed programs used a lottery to randomly assign prospective enrollees a chance to… more →