Matthew Kraft is an Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University. His research and teaching interests include the economics of education, education policy analysis, and applied quantitative methods for causal inference. His primary work focuses on efforts to improve educator and organizational effectiveness in K–12 urban public schools. He has published on topics including teacher coaching, teacher professional growth, teacher evaluation, teacher-parent communication, teacher layoffs, social and emotional skills, school working conditions, and extended learning time. Previously, he taught 8th grade English in Oakland USD and 9th grade humanities at Berkeley High School in California. He holds a doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education as well as a master's in International Comparative Education and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.
Matthew Kraft
EdWorkingPapers
The Inequitable Effects of Teacher Layoffs: What We Know and Can Do
Economic downturns can cause major funding shortfalls for U.S. public schools, often forcing districts to make difficult budget cuts including teacher layoffs. In this brief, we synthesize the empirical literature on the widespread teacher layoffs caused by the Great Recession. Studies find that… more →
Local Supply, Temporal Dynamics, and Unrealized Potential in Teacher Hiring
We explore the dynamics of competitive search in the K-12 public education sector. Using data from Boston Public Schools, we document how teacher labor supply varies substantially by position types, schools, and the timing of job postings. We find that early-posted positions are more likely to… more →
The Big Problem with Little Interruptions to Classroom Learning
Narrative accounts of classroom instruction suggest that external interruptions, such as intercom announcements and visits from staff, are a regular occurrence in U.S. public schools. We study the frequency, nature, and duration of external interruptions in the Providence Public School District… more →
School-based Mentoring Relationships and Human Capital Formation
We document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and school personnel. Using longitudinal data from a large, nationally representative sample of adolescents, we explore the… more →
Can Teacher Evaluation Systems Produce High-Quality Feedback? An Administrator Training Field Experiment
A core motivation for the widespread teacher evaluation reforms of the last decade was the belief that these new systems would promote teacher development through high-quality feedback. We examine this theory by studying teachers’ perceptions of evaluation feedback in Boston Public Schools and… more →
Operator versus Partner: A Case Study of Blueprint School Network’s Model for School Turnaround
Numerous high-profile efforts have sought to “turn around” low-performing schools. Evidence on the effectiveness of school turnarounds, however, is mixed, and research offers little guidance on which models are more likely to succeed. We present a mixed-methods case study of turnaround efforts… more →
Sustaining a Sense of Success: The Protective Role of Teacher Working Conditions During the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 shuttered schools across the United States, upending traditional approaches to education. We examine teachers’ experiences during emergency remote teaching in the spring of 2020 using responses to a working conditions survey from a sample of 7,841 teachers across 206 schools and 9… more →
A Blueprint for Scaling Tutoring Across Public Schools
In this thought experiment, we explore how tutoring could be scaled nationally to address COVID-19 learning loss and become a permanent feature of the U.S. public education system. We outline a blueprint centered on ten core principles and a federal architecture to support adoption, while… more →
Can Technology Transform Communication between Schools, Teachers, and Parents? Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial
We study the adoption and implementation of a new mobile communication app among a sample of 132 New York City public schools. The app provides a platform for sharing general announcements and news as well as engaging in personalized two-way communication with individual parents. We provide… 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 →