Student Well-Being
Beyond School Police Officers: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Exposure to a Fuller Range of School Security Personnel
Using data from the 2017–18 and 2020–21 Civil Rights Data Collection, we document dispari-ties in exposure to security personnel across US high schools and geographic levels. We dis-tinguish between law enforcement officers (LEOs) and school security guards (SSGs) to cap-ture variation in how… more →
The Effects of High-Impact Tutoring on Student Attendance: Evidence from a State Initiative
Student absenteeism surged during and after the pandemic, harming engagement and achievement. We evaluate the impact of Washington DC’s High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) Initiative—designed to mitigate learning loss through targeted academic supports—on student absenteeism. Using daily attendance data… more →
Does Early Childhood Education mitigate the birthdate effect? A regression discontinuity analysis of administrative data
This article examines the impact of within-class age differences on educational outcomes, using students' birth months in Madrid's primary schools as a natural experiment. Employing a regression discontinuity design, we analyze third-grade students to investigate these age-related effects.… more →
Early Childhood Education and Maltreated Children’s Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes: Quasi-experimental Evidence from the National Survey of Childhood and Adolescent Well-Being II
Prior evidence shows that early childhood education (ECE) can serve as a protective factor that boosts maltreated children’s school readiness outcomes. Yet, less is known about ECE’s relationship to other developmental domains critical to their wellbeing including their adaptive behaviors and… more →
Entering and Exiting the Foster Care System: Implications for Absenteeism Among Child Welfare Involved Youth
While foster youth miss more school versus their non-foster counterparts, their status as a foster youth is not static, with many of them entering and exiting the foster care system over time. These dynamics of entry and exit can represent particularly crucial transition periods of stability and… more →
The Effects of School Building HVAC System Conditions on Student Academic and Behavioral Outcomes
There is growing awareness of the importance of school building environments for student health, well-being, and even educational outcomes. We ask in this study what role school building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems play in shaping student attendance, behavior, and… more →
Causal Mechanisms of Relative Age Effects on Adolescent Risky Behaviours
Age differences between classmates are attracting growing attention in academic research and public policy, yet their underlying mechanisms remain understudied. We examine how relative age affects adolescents’ risky behaviors across Europe. Using Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC)… more →
IncreasED: How Court Rulings Impact Special Education Identification
Healthcare services outside of school impact the likelihood of receiving a school-based special education classification and services. Using Massachusetts administrative data on public school students, this paper employs difference-in-differences to examine the impacts of expanded Medicaid… more →
Changes in Kindergarten Redshirting During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on academic "redshirting" in kindergarten, the practice of holding a child back for a year and enrolling them in kindergarten at age 6, using student-level data on all Delaware kindergarten students from fall 2014 through fall 2022. The rate of… more →
Priceless Benefits: Effects of School Spending on Child Mortality
The academic and economic benefits of school spending are well-established, but focusing on these outcomes may underestimate the full social benefits of school spending. Recent increases in U.S. child mortality are driven by injuries and raise questions about what types of social investments… more →
The Effects of a Statewide Ban on School Suspensions
This research analyzes the implementation of a school suspension ban in Maryland to investigate whether a top-down state-initiated ban on suspensions in early primary grades can influence school behavior regarding school discipline. Beginning in the fall of 2017, the State of Maryland banned the… more →
The Causal Effect of Parenting Style on Early Child Development
This paper presents causal evidence on the impact of parenting practices on early child development. We exploit exogenous changes in nurturing care induced by a parent training intervention to estimate the impact of nurturing parenting practices on child outcomes. We find a large and significant… more →
Instability in Foster Care: How Transitions Into and Out of Foster Care Relate to School Discipline
Students in the foster care system tend to have lower educational outcomes than their peers, including more frequent disciplinary events. However, few studies have explored how transitions into and out of foster care placements are associated with educational outcomes. Using longitudinal data… more →
Do later school start times improve adolescents’ sleep and substance use? A quasi-experimental study
A later school start time policy has been recommended as a solution to adolescents’ sleep deprivation. We estimated the impacts of later school start times on adolescents’ sleep and substance use by leveraging a quasi-experiment in which school start time was delayed in some regions in South… more →
Staffing Interventions to Support Students Experiencing Homelessness: Evidence from New York City
There is limited empirical evidence about educational interventions for students experiencing homelessness, who experience distinct disadvantages compared to their low-income peers. We explore how two school staffing interventions in New York City shaped the attendance outcomes of students… more →
The Challenges of Scaling up Effective Child-Rearing Practices Using Technology in Developing Settings: Experimental Evidence From India
Home-visitation programs have improved child development in low- and middle-income countries, but they are costly to scale due to their reliance on trained workers. We evaluated an inexpensive and low-tech alternative with 2,433 caregivers of children aged 6 to 30 months served by 250 public… more →
Ending Early Grade Suspensions
We investigate the beginning of the school discipline pipeline using a reform in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that limited the use of out-of- school suspension for students in grades K–2. We find that the reform reduced the likelihood of out-of-school suspension by 1.4 percentage points (56%)… more →
On the Margin: Who Receives a Juvenile Referral in School and What Effect Does It Have?
Involvement with the juvenile justice system carries immense consequences both to detained youth and to society more broadly. Extant research on the “school-to-prison pipeline” often focuses on school disciplinary practices such as suspension with less attention on understanding the impact of… more →
Disability as Discipline? Effects of the New York City Suspension Ban on Identification of Students with Disabilities
Across the United States, suspension bans have become a popular policy response to address excessive and inequitable use of suspension in schools. However, there is little research that examines what strategies school staff employ when suspension is no longer permitted. I examine the effect of New… more →
School and Crime
Criminal activity is seasonal, peaking in the summer and declining through the winter. We provide the first evidence that arrests of children and reported crimes involving children follow a different pattern: peaking during the school year and declining in the summer. We use a regression… more →