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Another One Rides the Bus: The Impact of School Transportation on Student Outcomes in Michigan Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2024-01-01 Danielle Sanderson Edwards
School transportation may increase student outcomes by providing a reliable and safe means of getting to and from school. Little evidence of the effects of such policies exists. In this paper, I provide some of the first causal evidence of transportation impacts on student attendance and achievement using a rich panel of student-level enrollment and address data for Michigan public school students
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Extreme Measures: A National Descriptive Analysis of Closure and Restructuring of Traditional Public, Charter, and Private Schools Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2024-01-01 Douglas N. Harris, Valentina Martinez-Pabon
We describe the levels, trends, and patterns of school closure and restructuring in the United States from 1991 to 2019 across all sectors using a near census of K–12 schools. Focusing on the years with the best available data, 2014–18, we find that the annual closure rate of charter, private, and traditional public schools (TPSs) were 5.1, 2.9, and 0.9 percent, respectively. The annual restructuring
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College Football Performance, Student Earnings, and the Gender Wage Gap Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2024-01-01 Monica Harber Carney
Fluctuations in U.S. college football team performance have been shown to have impacts on the student experience. This study explores the long-run implications, examining the impact of college football team performance relative to the period of student attendance on future earnings. Better college football team performance during the early years of school attendance increases average wages of male
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College Gap Time and Academic Outcomes for Women: Evidence from Missionaries Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2024-01-01 Margaret Marchant, Jocelyn S. Wikle
This study leverages a policy change in the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that exogenously influenced the likelihood that a woman took gap time during college to understand how gap time influences women's subsequent choice of major and academic outcomes. If structured gap time shapes educational outcomes, increasing the uptake of gap time by women may be a mechanism
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Let's Tweet Again? Social Networks and Literature Achievement in High School Students Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Gian Paolo Barbetta, Paolo Canino, Stefano Cima
The availability of cheap Wi-Fi Internet connections has encouraged schools to adopt Web 2.0 platforms for teaching, with the intention of stimulating students’ academic achievement and participation in school. Moreover, during the recent explosion of the COVID-19 crisis that forced many countries to close schools (as well as offices and factories), the widespread diffusion of these applications kept
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Testing, Teacher Turnover, and the Distribution of Teachers Across Grades and Schools Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Dillon Fuchsman, Tim R. Sass, Gema Zamarro
Teacher turnover has adverse consequences for student achievement and imposes large financial costs for schools. Some have argued that high-stakes testing may lower teachers’ satisfaction with their jobs and could be a major contributor to teacher attrition. In this paper, we exploit changes in the tested grades and subjects in Georgia to study the effects of eliminating high-stakes testing on teacher
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Leveraging Experimental and Observational Evidence to Assess the Generalizability of the Effects of Early Colleges in North Carolina Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Sarah Fuller, Douglas Lee Lauen, Fatih Unlu
Early college high schools (ECHSs) in North Carolina are small public schools of choice on college campuses that seek to promote attaining postsecondary credits in high school, college readiness, and postsecondary enrollment for underrepresented groups. Evidence from randomized control trials (RCTs) has shown positive effects of the ECHS model on important high school and postsecondary outcomes but
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Paying for Free Lunch: The Impact of CEP Universal Free Meals on Revenues, Spending, and Student Health Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Michah W. Rothbart, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Emily Gutierrez
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows school districts to provide free meals to all students if over 40 percent of them are directly certified as free-meal eligible. While emerging evidence documents positive effects on student behavior and academics, critics worry that CEP has unintended consequences for student weight, district finances, and
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Racial Differences in Student Access to High-Quality Teachers Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, Calen R. Clifton
Access to high-quality teachers in K–12 schools differs systematically by racial group. This policy brief reviews the academic research documenting these differences and the labor market forces and segregation patterns that solidify them. It also presents new analysis of differential exposure in North Carolina of white, black, and Hispanic students to teachers with different quality-related credentials
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Sibling Gender Effects on Test Scores Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Hyunkuk Cho
This study examines the hypothesis that having an older sister causes one to perform relatively better at reading. For the analysis, a cross-subject analysis is conducted to examine a student's relative reading test score (reading test score minus math test score) based on older sibling gender. We found that a student's relative reading test score is larger when the student has an older sister than
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Spending More on the Poor? A Comprehensive Summary of State-Specific Responses to School Finance Reforms from 1990–2014 Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Kenneth A. Shores, Christopher A. Candelaria, Sarah E. Kabourek
Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs), a combination of court-ordered and legislative reforms, have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. In this study, we estimate the effects of SFRs on revenues and expenditures between 1990 and 2014 for twenty-six states. We find that, on average, per pupil spending increased, especially in low-income
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Does Developmental Education Reform Help or Hinder the Success of Language Minority Students? An Exploration by Language Minority, ESOL, and Foreign-Born Status Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Christine G. Mokher, Toby J. Park-Gaghan, Shouping Hu
Community colleges may face challenges supporting the unique needs of language minority (LM) students whose primary language is not English. Florida provides a unique context for examining whether LM students who are considered underprepared for college-level coursework benefit more from traditional developmental education programs in reading and writing, or reformed programs that allow most students
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A Classroom Observer Like Me: The Effects of Race-Congruence and Gender-Congruence between Teachers and Raters on Observation Scores Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Olivia L. Chi
State and local education agencies across the country are prioritizing the goal of diversifying the teacher workforce. To further understand the challenges of diversifying the teacher pipeline, I investigate race and gender dynamics between teachers and school-based administrators, who are key decision makers in hiring, evaluating, and retaining teachers. I use longitudinal data from a large school
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Do College Applicants Respond to Changes in Sticker Prices Even When They Don't Matter? Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Phillip B. Levine, Jennifer Ma, Lauren C. Russell
Do students respond to sticker prices or actual prices when applying to college? These costs differ for students eligible for financial aid. Students who do not understand this may not apply to some colleges because of the perceived high cost. We test for this form of “sticker shock” using College Board data on SAT scores sent, as a proxy for applications, to leading public institutions for students
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COVID-19 Crisis, Economic Hardships, and Schooling Outcomes Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Esther Gehrke, Friederike Lenel, Claudia Schupp
We combine phone-survey data from 2,200 students collected in July–August of 2020 with student-level administrative data from 54 schools in four northwestern provinces of Cambodia to investigate the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for grade 9 students. These students were particularly vulnerable to dropping out of school prematurely due to the crisis. We find that most students kept studying
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Research Grants Crowding Out and Crowding In Donations to Higher Education Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Grant Gannaway, Garth Heutel, Michael Price
Using a dataset that includes every private donation made to a large public university from 1938 to 2012 and demographic information on all alumni, we examine the effects of public research funding on individual donations. Our dataset allows us to examine crowding effects on a small time scale and extensive donor characteristics. We estimate effects on the total number of donations (extensive margin)
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Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Sarah Asson, Erica Frankenberg, Annie Maselli, Ian Burfoot-Rochford, Christopher S. Fowler, Ruth Krebs Buck
School attendance zone boundary (AZB) data remain relatively underdocumented and understudied within the field of education, despite their critical implications for educational (in)equity. AZBs shape student outcomes and residential sorting patterns both by determining the public schools a student is assigned to and by signaling neighborhood characteristics to prospective homebuyers. The limited access
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Teachers’ Preferences for Proximity and the Implications for Staffing Schools: Evidence from Peru Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Eleonora Bertoni, Gregory Elacqua, Diana Hincapié, Carolina Méndez, Diana Paredese
This paper uses the 2015 Peruvian national teacher selection process to explore candidates’ rank-ordered preferences for public schools. We show that, in seeking a permanent position, candidates prefer schools that are closer to where they attended their Teacher Education Program and that are located in urban areas. These preferences vary by candidates’ attributes: urban location seems to be particularly
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The Effects of Campus Shootings on School Finance and Student Composition Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Lang (Kate) Yang, Maithreyi Gopalan
Between 1999 and 2018, 210 shootings have occurred on public school campuses in the United States. The increased need for security and student support may crowd out instructional resources post-shooting. Shootings may also cause students, especially those from socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds, to move away, leading to declines in enrollment. Both changes in the budget allocation and the student
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CTE Teacher Licensure and Long-Term Student Outcomes Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Bingjie Chen, Shaun Dougherty, Dan Goldhaber, Kristian Holden, Roddy Theobald
We use longitudinal data from Massachusetts that link high school course-taking records in career and technical education (CTE) to postsecondary student outcomes to provide the first empirical evidence linking characteristics of CTE teachers to later student outcomes. We find that CTE teachers who received better scores on subject performance tests required for licensure tend to have students with
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Race to the Tablet? The Impact of a Personalized Tablet Educational Program Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Elizabeth Setren
The presence of tablets and laptops in schools has burgeoned in recent years, with $4.9 billion spent on over 10.8 million devices in 2015. Despite the large and increasingly prevalent monetary and time investments in education technology, little causal evidence of its effectiveness exists. I estimate the effect of a Math and English Language Arts tablet educational program that supplements core instruction
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Can Community Crime Monitoring Reduce Student Absenteeism? Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Sarah Komisarow, Robert Gonzalez
In this paper we study the impact on student absenteeism of a large, school-based community crime monitoring program that employed local community members to monitor and report crime on designated city blocks during times when students traveled to and from school. We find that the program resulted in a 0.58 percentage point (8.5 percent) reduction in the elementary school-level absence rate in the
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The Impact of Principal Attrition and Replacement on Indicators of School Quality Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Marcus A. Winters, Brian Kisida, Ikhee Cho
Transitions to a new principal are common, especially within urban public schools, and potentially highly disruptive to a school's culture and operations. We use longitudinal data from New York City to investigate if the effect of principal transitions differs by whether the incoming principal was hired externally or promoted from within the school. We take advantage of variation in the timing of principal
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Pencils Down? Computerized Testing and Student Achievement Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 John Gordanier, Orgul Ozturk, Crystal Zhan
Computer-based testing (CBT) is becoming an increasingly popular format of assessment in educational settings. If students face a digital divide in terms of access to computers at school and at home, CBT may exacerbate measured student achievement gaps. In this paper, we use the rollout of CBT in South Carolina starting in 2015 to investigate its effect on measured student performance. We link student-level
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What Happened to the K–12 Education Labor Market During COVID? The Acute Need for Better Data Systems Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Joshua F. Bleiberg, Matthew A. Kraft
The COVID-19 pandemic upended the U.S. education system in ways that dramatically affected the jobs of K–12 employees. However, there remains considerable uncertainty about the nature and degree of staffing challenges during the pandemic. We draw on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and State Education Agencies (SEA) to describe patterns in K–12 education employment and to highlight the
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How Much Does Public School Facility Funding Depend on Property Wealth? Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Eric J. Brunner, David Schwegman, Jeffrey M. Vincent
We examine how funding for public school facilities varies with school district property wealth and household income. Using data on school facility (i.e., capital) funding in California from fiscal years 1986–87 to 2015–16, we find that funding for school construction and modernization varies widely across districts. Disparities in funding are driven primarily by interdistrict differences in property
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The Dynamic Effects of a Summer Learning Program on Behavioral Engagement in School Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Jaymes Pyne, Erica Messner, Thomas S. Dee
Evidence that student learning declines or stagnates during summers has motivated an interest in programs providing intensive summer instruction. However, existing literature suggests that such programs have modest effects on achievement and no impact on measures of engagement in school. In this quasi-experimental study, we present evidence on the impact of a comprehensive and mature summer learning
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Advanced Placement and Initial College Enrollment: Evidence from an Experiment Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Dylan Conger, Mark C. Long, Raymond Jr. McGhee
To evaluate how Advanced Placement (AP) courses affect college-going, we randomly assigned the offer of enrollment into an AP science course to over 1,800 students in twenty-three schools that had not previously offered the course. We find no AP course effects on students’ college entrance exam scores (SAT/ACT). As expected, AP course-takers are substantially more likely to take the AP exam than their
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The Effects of Delivering Personalized Course Recommendations at Scale on Advanced Placement Participation and Performance Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Zachary Mabel, Michael D. Hurwitz, Matea Pender, Brooke White
Gaps in advanced high school coursework by socioeconomic status and geography persist in the United States, even among students with the ability and access to succeed in them. Lack of information on course availability and inaccurate self-perceptions may contribute to these inequities. We report on a large-scale experiment designed to increase Advanced Placement (AP) participation among underrepresented
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The Pathway to Enrolling in a High-Performance High School: Understanding Barriers to Access Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Lauren Sartain,Lisa Barrow
Abstract In 2017, Chicago Public Schools adopted an online universal application system for all high schools with the hope of providing more equitable access to high-performance schools. Despite the new system, black students and students living in low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods remained less likely than their peers to enroll in a high-performance high school. In this paper, we characterize
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Improving Graduation Rates in the Two-to-Four Pathway to Bachelor's Degrees Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Zhengren Zhu
Abstract In the United States, transferring from a two-year program to a four-year program has become an increasingly important route toward a bachelor's degree. However, the pathway has an extremely high attrition rate. Utilizing two recent institutional reforms in the University System of Georgia, I show that allowing community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees and consolidating institutions increase
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Can Technology Transform Communication Between Schools, Teachers, and Parents? Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Matthew A. Kraft,Alexander J. Bolves
Abstract We study the adoption and implementation of a new mobile communication application (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 participating schools with free access to the app and randomize schools to receive intensive
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Can Technology Transform Communication Between Schools, Teachers, and Parents? Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Matthew A. Kraft,Alexander J. Bolves
Abstract We study the adoption and implementation of a new mobile communication application (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 participating schools with free access to the app and randomize schools to receive intensive
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The Pathway to Enrolling in a High-Performance High School: Understanding Barriers to Access Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Lauren Sartain,Lisa Barrow
Abstract In 2017, Chicago Public Schools adopted an online universal application system for all high schools with the hope of providing more equitable access to high-performance schools. Despite the new system, black students and students living in low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods remained less likely than their peers to enroll in a high-performance high school. In this paper, we characterize
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Improving Graduation Rates in the Two-to-Four Pathway to Bachelor's Degrees Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Zhengren Zhu
Abstract In the United States, transferring from a two-year program to a four-year program has become an increasingly important route toward a bachelor's degree. However, the pathway has an extremely high attrition rate. Utilizing two recent institutional reforms in the University System of Georgia, I show that allowing community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees and consolidating institutions increase
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Balancing State and Local Power over School Districts’ Finances Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Kristine L. Bowman,Dirk F. Zuschlag
Abstract During and for many years after the 2008–10 Great Recession, financial crises in districts across the country triggered varying state involvement in those districts’ finances and governance, up to and including complete takeover. While these actions were most prominent in a handful of states, all states have laws that enable them to intervene in school districts’ finances. These laws shape
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Teachers’ Preferences for Proximity and the Implications for Staffing Schools: Evidence from Peru Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Eleonora Bertoni,Gregory Elacqua,Diana Hincapié,Carolina Méndez,Diana Paredese
Abstract This paper uses the 2015 Peruvian national teacher selection process to explore candidates’ rank-ordered preferences for public schools. We show that, in seeking a permanent position, candidates prefer schools that are closer to where they attended their Teacher Education Program and that are located in urban areas. These preferences vary by candidates’ attributes: urban location seem to be
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Student Transportation in Choice-Rich Districts: Implementation Challenges and Responses Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj
Abstract Despite a growing recognition of the significance of student transportation for promoting equitable school choice, to date, there has been limited understanding of the implementation of school transportation policies, particularly in choice-heavy settings. Moreover, little is known about the challenges associated with managing student transportation in large school districts or how school-
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Did Gainful Employment Regulations Result in College and Program Closures? Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Robert Kelchen,Zhuoyao Liu
Abstract For decades, the federal government has expected vocationally focused programs in higher education, especially among for-profit colleges, to lead to gainful employment in a profession. In the mid 2010s, the U.S. Department of Education developed gainful employment (GE) regulations that sought to tie a program's federal financial aid eligibility to graduates’ debt-to-earnings ratios. We use
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Teacher Incentives and Student Performance: Evidence from Brazil Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Andrea Lépine
Abstract This paper provides evidence on a large-scale teacher incentive program in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, which awarded group bonuses to teachers and school staff conditional on improvements in student performance. By using a difference-in-differences and triple-differences framework with a series of alternative counterfactual groups, I show that the program had positive effects on student
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Comprehensive Support and Student Success: Can Out of School Time Make a Difference? Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Sarah Komisarow
Abstract StudentU is a comprehensive program that provides education, nutrition, and social support services to disadvantaged middle and high school students outside of the regular school day. In this paper I investigate the effects of this multiyear program on the early high school outcomes of participating students by exploiting data from oversubscribed admissions lotteries. I find that the subgroup
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Your Pay or Someone Else's? Exploring Salary Dispersion, Position, and Principal Turnover Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Andrew Pendola
Abstract This study explores ways in which salary can be structured to reduce leadership shortages by investigating how comparative wage dispersion and position alter the relationship of salary to principal turnover. Using a seventeen-year longitudinal dataset covering over sixteen thousand principals in Texas, discrete-time hazard models demonstrate that principals are highly sensitive to salary comparisons
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Racial Diversity and Measuring Merit: Evidence from Boston's Exam School Admissions Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Melanie Rucinski,Joshua Goodman
Abstract The impact of admissions process design on the racial diversity of schools and colleges has sparked heated debates. We study the pipeline into Boston's three public exam schools to understand racial gaps in enrollment. Admission to these schools has historically been based on a combination of grade point average (GPA) and a score on an optional test from a private developer. We document racial
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The Impact of Corequisite Math on Community College Student Outcomes: Evidence from Texas Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Akiva Yonah Meiselman,Lauren Schudde
Abstract Developmental education (dev-ed) aims to help students acquire knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in college-level coursework. The traditional prerequisite approach to postsecondary dev-ed—where students take remedial courses that do not count toward a credential—appears to stymie progress toward a degree. At community colleges across the country, most students require remediation in
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The Effect of Extra School Funding on Students' Academic Achievements under a Centralized School Financing System Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-03-15 Hosung Sohn,Heeran Park,Haeil Jung
Abstract This paper analyzes the effect of providing extra school funding on student achievement under the homogenous school funding system in South Korea. This study exploits an administrative cutoff rule that determines the provision of school funding and uses a regression discontinuity design to identify a causal impact of extra school funding. The analysis finds that a 20% increase in per-pupil
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School's Out: How Summer Youth Employment Programs Impact Academic Outcomes Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-03 Alicia Sasser Modestino,Richard Paulsen
Abstract Recently there has been an emphasis on how time spent outside of the classroom can affect student outcomes, including high school graduation, with the hope of closing academic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. This paper provides experimental evidence regarding a particular type of out-of-school activity—early work experience—on high school academic outcomes for low-income
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The Effects of Financial Aid Loss on Persistence and Graduation: A Multi-Dimensional Regression Discontinuity Approach Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Todd R. Jones,Daniel Kreisman,Ross Rubenstein,Cynthia Searcy,Rachana Bhatt
Abstract For years Georgia's HOPE Scholarship program provided full tuition scholarships to high-achieving students. State budgetary shortfalls reduced its generosity in 2011. Under the new rules, only students meeting more rigorous merit-based criteria would retain the original scholarship covering full tuition, now called the Zell Miller Scholarship, with other students seeing aid reductions of approximately
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Getting Tough? The Effects of Discretionary Principal Discipline on Student Outcomes Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Lucy C. Sorensen,Shawn D. Bushway,Elizabeth J. Gifford
Abstract Nationwide, school principals are given wide discretion to use disciplinary tools like suspension and expulsion to create a safe learning environment. There is legitimate concern that this power can have negative consequences, particularly for the students who are excluded. This study uses linked disciplinary, education, and criminal justice records from 2008 to 2016 in North Carolina to examine
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Prioritizing School Finance Equity during an Economic Downturn: Recommendations for State Policy Makers Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 David S. Knight,Nail Hassairi,Christopher A. Candelaria,Min Sun,Margaret L. Plecki
Abstract State budgets temporarily crashed amid the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown, placing education funding at risk. To demonstrate implications for school finance, we show that (1) school districts are racially segregated along class lines; (2) higher-poverty districts receive a greater share of funds from state, as opposed to local sources, making them especially vulnerable during economic
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An Examination of Test Score Trajectories Around School Switching Due to Grade Configuration Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Richard W. DiSalvo
Abstract Do grade configurations affect student academic performance? To bring new evidence to this question, I use recent district-by-grade data for nearly the entire United States that contain measures of test score achievement and rates of school switching induced by grade configuration. Past research has found that student performance, is, on average, relatively low following switches due to grade
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Measuring the Effect of Student Loans on College Persistence Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 David Card,Alex Solis
Abstract Governments around the world use grant and loan programs to ease the financial constraints that contribute to socioeconomic gaps in college completion. A growing body of research assesses the impact of grants; less is known about how loan programs affect persistence and degree completion. We use detailed administrative data from Chile to provide rigorous regression discontinuity-based evidence
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The Inequitable Effects of Teacher Layoffs: What We Know and Can Do Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Matthew A. Kraft,Joshua F. Bleiberg
Abstract 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 teacher layoffs harmed student achievement and were inequitably distributed across schools, teachers
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Nothing as Expected: The Year that Was… Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Patrice Iatarola
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Reforming Teacher Pension Plans: The Case of Kansas, the 1st Teacher Cash Balance Plan Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-07-27 Robert M. Costrell
Abstract The ongoing crisis in teacher pension funding has led states to consider various reforms in plan design, to replace the traditional benefit formulas, based on years of service and final average salary (FAS). One such design is a cash balance (CB) plan, long deployed in the private sector, and increasingly considered, but rarely yet adopted for teachers. Such plans are structured with individual
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How Big is the Ballpark? Assessing Variation in Grant Aid Awards within Net Price Calculator Student Profiles Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-06-01 Aaron M. Anthony,Lindsay C. Page
Abstract Net Price Calculators (NPCs) are online tools designed to increase transparency in college pricing by presenting students with individualized estimates of net prices to attend a given postsecondary institution. The federal template NPC predicts identical aid awards for similarly-profiled students attending the same institution. Using the 2012 National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey, we use
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The Impact of Teacher Labor Market Reforms on Student Achievement: Evidence from Michigan Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-05-07 Kaitlin P. Anderson,Joshua M. Cowen,Katharine O. Strunk
Abstract Over the past decade, many states enacted substantial reforms to teacher-related laws and policies. In Michigan, the state legislature implemented requirements for teacher evaluation based partly on student achievement, reduced tenure protections, and restricted the scope of teacher collective bargaining. Some teacher advocates view such reform as a “war on teachers,” but proponents argue
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The Effect of Bonuses on Teacher Retention and Student Learning in Rural Schools: A Story of Spillovers Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Juan F. Castro,Bruno Esposito
Abstract We estimate the direct and indirect effects of recruitment bonuses paid to teachers working in rural schools in Peru on their retention and student learning. This is the first study to estimate the indirect effects of a bonus aimed at attracting teachers to disadvantaged schools. This is important for assessing whether the incentive has improved the distribution of teaching resources and for
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Impact of a Low-Cost Postsecondary Enrollment Intervention: Evidence from Louisiana Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Swarup Joshi,Stephen Barnes
Abstract It is well understood that postsecondary education increases lifetime earnings, yet the complexity of the college application process creates a barrier to postsecondary enrollment. This paper investigates a whole-school external application assistance program run by a nonprofit student support services organization, Career Compass of Louisiana. We use panel data of Louisiana high schools in
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AEFP in a Time of Upheaval Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Thomas Downes
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The Impact of College Outreach on High Schoolers’ College Choices - Results From Over 1,000 Natural Experiments Education Finance and Policy (IF 1.778) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Jonathan Smith,Jessica Howell,Michael Hurwitz
We estimate the impact of one of the largest college-to-student outreach efforts in the nation, the College Board's Student Search Service. In an oversubscribed “order”, colleges receive contact information of a randomly chosen subset of PSAT and SAT Exam takers who opted into the service and meet colleges’ search criteria from a larger set of students with identical backgrounds. We find that students