Working Papers, Policy Briefs & Reports
The Effects of Grade Retention in Indiana Schools
Authors: Abigail Francis, Marcus A. Winters Project Summary Many states require third graders to pass a gateway reading test before moving on to fourth grade, making test-based promotion one of the most consequential and contested early literacy policies in the country. Several states have recently softened or repealed their retention requirements, and the debate has largely centered on a single question: does holding students back help or harm them? That framing misses the nuance of how these...
Air Pollution and Learning
Authors: A. Patrick Behrer, Joshua Goodman, J. Parker Goyer, R. Jisung Park Project Summary Air pollution is usually treated as a public health and environmental concern, but it can also affect how much students learn. This brief summarizes a new study of how exposure to polluted air over a school year affects student learning, when that exposure matters most, and which students bear the greatest cost. The authors draw on College Board data for nearly 10 million students who took the PSAT at...
Understanding ECE Workforce Needs in Massachusetts
Author: Pia Caronongan Project Summary Expanding access to early care and education (ECE) in Massachusetts depends on having enough educators to staff it. This brief lays out a framework for estimating how many educators the state needs under different capacity expansion scenarios, accounting for licensing ratios, program setting, and annual turnover. Produced through WEPC's ongoing partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), it applies that framework to an...
Massachusetts School Enrollment Dashboard
This interactive dashboard examines the gap between the predicted and actual enrollment in Massachusetts public, private, charter, and home schools.
Teacher Shortages in Connecticut
Project Summary The Wheelock Educational Policy Center, in partnership with the Connecticut State Department of Education, tracks where and why staffing shortages persist in Connecticut's public schools. These reports identify shortage areas across special populations, general education subjects, and school support personnel—and examine how those gaps fall unevenly across districts. Together, the 2023 and 2025 editions show how the state's staffing challenges have evolved over time.Project...
Guardrails or Barriers
How changes afoot in teacher licensure could help settle decades-long debates Change is afoot with teacher licensure. In almost every state we know of, there is a conversation happening about the requirements that determine who can become a teacher. But not all states are moving in the same direction. The shifting sands of teacher licensure offer a good opportunity to revisit old debates about the efficacy of licensure requirements and highlight a significant problem: the current state of...
Massachusetts School Leader Workforce – Annual Snapshots
Project Resources Working Paper (March 2026) 2025-2026In the News Project Summary Led by Dr. Olivia Chi, WEPC is partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to study the characteristics, career trajectories, and outcomes of principals and assistant principals in public schools. These snapshots illustrate key facts and figures about the Massachusetts school leader workforce in multiple school years, providing policy-relevant insights for the...
Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States
Authors: Stephanie Coffey, Joshua Goodman, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel, Marcus A. Winters, Yunee H. Yoon Project Summary Special education serves more than one in seven U.S. students, yet its causal impact remains understudied. In this paper, we estimate the effect of individualized supports with an event-study design that tracks achievement around initial classification. The research shows students’ scores decline prior to placement and rise sharply afterward. Overall, individualized...
Examining Wage Growth in ECE Programs: Evidence from Massachusetts
Authors: Pia Caronongan, Katie Hyland Project Summary Early educators are among the lowest-paid workers in the United States, in part because most early care and education (ECE) programs operate within constrained business models. In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) program distributes grants that can be used for workforce investments. We examined how educator wages changed during the program’s implementation and what factors explain variation in wage growth. Average...
Early Returns: Reversing Enrollment Declines in Massachusetts Community Colleges through MassReconnect
Authors: Shaun Dougherty, Morgan Fleming, Joshua Goodman, Yunee H. Yoon Project Summary When Massachusetts introduced MassReconnect in 2023, it aimed to reverse a decade of community college enrollment decline by offering free tuition to adults 25 and older. Early results prompted the state to expand the program to all residents through MassEducate, representing a substantial state investment in expanding access. This report analyzes MassReconnect's first two years, exploring enrollment...