Working Papers, Policy Briefs & Reports
Teacher Time Use and Affect During COVID-19
Authors: Nathan Jones, Eric Camburn, Ben Kelcey, & Esther Quintero This research was supported in part by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences. Project Summary In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of school buildings across the United States and a subsequent unplanned nationwide transition to remote learning. For teachers, these school building closures resulted in a transformation of many facets of their work, requiring them to take on new and often...
The COVID-19 Pandemic Disrupted Both School Bullying and Cyberbullying
Author: Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Joshua Goodman, Jennifer Greif Green, Melissa K. Holt Project Summary School bullying is widespread and has substantial social costs. One in five U.S. high school students report being bullied each school year and these students face greater risks of serious mental health chal-lenges that extend into adulthood. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced most students into online education, many have worried that cyberbullying prevalence would grow dramatically. We use data...
The School to Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime
Author: Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Stephen B. Billings, & David J. Deming Project Summary When faced with behavioral infractions, schools often turn to suspensions or other forms of exclusionary discipline as a means of managing student behavior and restoring a productive classroom learning environment. This paper estimates the net impact of school discipline on student achievement, educational attainment and future involvement with the criminal justice system. Using variation in school...
The Effect of Charter Schooling on Student Mobility and Classification Status
Authors: Allison Gilmour, Colin Shanks, & Marcus A. Winters Project SummaryThe characteristics of students enrolled in charter schools often differ from those of surrounding traditional public schools. Anecdotes of charter schools inappropriately discouraging unwanted students from applying (“cream skimming”) or encouraging struggling students to leave for a different school (“pushing out”) have led to the concern that such “enrollment gaps” are caused by charter schools systematically...
The Impact of Principal Attrition and Replacement on Indicators of School Quality
Authors: Marcus A. Winters, Brian Kisida, & Ikhee Cho Project Summary This study explores whether principal transitions are inherently disruptive or if the impact of changing principals depends on the context surrounding the outgoing or incoming principal—namely, whether the new principal was hired externally or promoted from within a school. Key Findings We find that transitions to both internal and external hires negatively impact student performance. Externally hired principals also...
A Classroom Observer Like Me: The Effects of Race-congruence and Gender-congruence Between Teachers and Raters on Observation Scores
Author: Olivia Chi Project Summary To further understand the challenges of diversifying the teacher pipeline, Olivia Chi examines how race and gender dynamics influence administrators’ subjective assessments of teachers in the context of classroom observations. Specifically, Chi asks whether teachers receive higher classroom observation scores as a result of sharing race or gender with their observers, who are typically school-based administrators. On a broad scale, if teachers benefit from...
Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: COVID-19 Induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time
Authors: Andrew Backer-Hicks, Joshua Goodman, & Christine Mulhern Project Summary In March of 2020, COVID-19 disrupted in-person education, causing both students and staff to abruptly switch to online learning models. The shift to virtual learning caused students to become reliant on technology, which raised equity concerns for lower income students who may not have access to a computer, high-speed internet, or parents with the time and training to oversee their learning. Andrew...
Oh Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries
Authors: Adam Altmejd, Andres Barrios Fernandez, Marin Drlje, Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, Dejan Kovac, Christine Mulhern, Christopher Neilson, & Jonathan Smith Project Summary A group of international collaborators, including Adam Altmejd, Andres Barrios-Fernandez, Marin Drlje, Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, Dejan Kovac, Christine Mulhern, Christopher Neilson, and Jonathan Smith, worked to identify the causal effect of one particular social connection: an older sibling who attends...
Professional Development at Scale: The Causal Effect of Obtaining an SEI Endorsement Under Massachusetts’s RETELL Initiative
Authors: Jesse Bruhn, Nathan Jones, Yasuko Kanno, & Marcus A. Winters This project was funded by a generous grant from the William T. Grant Foundation. Project Summary English learners (ELs) are among the most rapidly-growing and lowest-performing student groups in American public schools. Lack of access to teachers who have been trained to serve their specific needs is one potential explanation for ELs’ unequal educational outcomes relative to non-EL students. Jesse Bruhn, Nathan Jones,...
Regulatory Arbitrage in Teacher Hiring and Retention
Authors: Jesse M. Bruhn, Scott A. Imberman, & Marcus A. Winters Project Summary Charter schools typically have greater flexibility in their employment practices than do traditional public schools. However, it is not clear the extent to which charter schools capitalize on this comparative labor market flexibility to remove low value-added teachers or better retain high value-added teachers. Jesse Bruhn, Scott Imberman, and Marcus Winters use longitudinal administrative data from...