Education
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Sean Reardon
Leader: Sean Reardon
The purpose of the Education RG is to examine trends in the extent to which educational access and achievement are related to poverty and family background. The scholars working within this RG are examining state-level differences in the effects of social origins, uncovering the causes of the recent rise in the socioeconomic achievement gap, uncovering the causes of the yet more recent turnaround in this rise (among kindergarten children), and examining the ways in which high-achieving children from poor backgrounds can be induced to go to college. The following is a sampling of relevant CPI projects.
Reducing the race gap in test scores: How can the black-white gap in achievement test scores be eliminated? The new Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) will provide the most systematic evidence to date on the capacity of school-district policies to reduce the gap.
Colleges and rising income inequality: Are colleges delivering upward mobility for those raised in poverty? The new “Mobility Report Card” will provide unusually detailed data on this fundamental question.
Poverty and schooling on reservations: The noted ethnographer Martin Sánchez-Jankowski is examining how education on reservations can be reformed to reduce dropout, poverty, and suicide.
Featured Examples
Education - CPI Research
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| Expanding and Diversifying the Pool of Undergraduates who Study Economics: Insights from a New Introductory Course at Harvard | Amanda Bayer, Gregory Bruich, Raj Chetty, Andrew Housiaux |
Expanding and Diversifying the Pool of Undergraduates who Study Economics: Insights from a New Introductory Course at HarvardAuthor: Amanda Bayer, Gregory Bruich, Raj Chetty, Andrew HousiauxPublisher: National Bureau of Economic Research Date: 04/2020 There is widespread concern that economics does not attract as broad or diverse a pool of talent as it could. For example, less than one-third of undergraduates who receive degrees in economics are women, significantly lower than in math or statistics. This article presents a case study of a new introductory undergraduate course at Harvard, “Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems,” that enrolled 400 students, achieved nearly a 50-50 gender balance, and was among the highest-rated courses in the college. We first summarize the course’s content and pedagogical approach. We then illustrate how this approach differs from that taken in traditional courses by showing how canonical topics – income inequality, tax incidence, and adverse selection – are taught differently. Then, drawing upon students’ comments and prior research on effective teaching practices, we identify elements of the course’s approach that appear to underlie its success: connecting the material to students’ own experiences; teaching skills that have social and career value; and engaging students in scientific investigation of real-world problems. We conclude by discussing how these ideas for improving instruction in economics could be applied in other courses and tested empirically in future research. |
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| Lessons from New York City's Small Schools of Choice about High School Features that Promote Graduation for Disadvantaged Students | Howard S. Bloom, Rebecca Unterman, Pei Zhu, Sean F. Reardon |
Lessons from New York City's Small Schools of Choice about High School Features that Promote Graduation for Disadvantaged StudentsAuthor: Howard S. Bloom, Rebecca Unterman, Pei Zhu, Sean F. ReardonPublisher: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Date: 01/2020 The present paper uses a rich dataset based on naturally‐occurring lotteries for 68 new small non‐selective high schools in New York City, which we refer to as small schools of choice (SSCs), to address two related questions: (1) What high school features are promising levers for increasing graduation rates for disadvantaged students? and (2) What high school features helped to produce SSCs’ positive impacts on graduation rates? Our findings provide suggestive evidence that school leadership quality, teacher empowerment, teacher mutual support, teacher evaluation and feedback, teacher professional development, data‐driven instruction, teacher/parent communication, academic rigor, personalized learning, and teacher/student respect are promising levers for increasing graduation rates for disadvantaged students. Our findings also provide suggestive evidence that many of these school features explain part of the total average SSC effect on graduation rates, although most of this average effect remains unexplained. Lastly, our findings indicate that SSCs are clearly distinguishable from their counterfactual counterparts in terms of school features that were emphasized by SSC funders. |
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| Raising the Stakes: Inequality and Testing in the Russian Education System | Michelle Jackson, Tatiana Khavenson, Tatiana Chirkina |
Raising the Stakes: Inequality and Testing in the Russian Education SystemAuthor: Michelle Jackson, Tatiana Khavenson, Tatiana ChirkinaPublisher: Social Forces Date: 10/2019 Sociologists have argued that high-stakes tests open the door to high levels of educational inequality at transition points: in a high-stakes testing regime, parents and students are able to focus all energy and resources on test preparation, thus enhancing pre-existing inequalities in academic performance. But arguments about a special role for high-stakes tests are often prosecuted without explicit comparisons to other types of tests and assessments, usually because information on other tests is not available. In this article, we analyze a unique dataset on a contemporary cohort of Russian students, for whom we have PISA and TIMSS scores, low-stakes test scores, and high-stakes test scores. We compare the role each test plays in mediating socioeconomic background inequalities at the important transitions in the Russian educational system: the transition to upper secondary education and the transition to university. We find evidence in favor of a special role for the high-stakes test at the transition to university, but we also find evidence that gives cause to question the standard assumption that high-stakes tests should be a primary focus for those concerned about inequality of educational opportunity. |
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| Unpacking the Drivers of Racial Disparities in School Suspension and Expulsion | Jayanti Owens, Sara S. McLanahan |
Unpacking the Drivers of Racial Disparities in School Suspension and ExpulsionAuthor: Jayanti Owens, Sara S. McLanahanPublisher: Social Forces Date: 06/2019 School suspension and expulsion are important forms of punishment that disproportionately affect Black students, with long-term consequences for educational attainment and other indicators of wellbeing. Prior research identifies three mechanisms that help account for racial disparities in suspension and expulsion: between-school sorting, differences in student behaviors, and differences in the treatment and support of students with similar behaviors. We extend this literature by (1) comparing the contributions of these three mechanisms in a single study, (2) assessing behavior and school composition when children enter kindergarten and before most are exposed to school discipline, and (3) using both teacher and parent reports of student behaviors. Decomposition analyses reveal that differential treatment and support account for 46 percent of the Black/White gap in suspension/expulsion, while between-school sorting and differences in behavior account for 21 percent and 9 percent of the gap respectively. Results are similar for boys and girls and robust to the use of school fixed effects and measures of school composition and student behavior at ages 5 and 9. Theoretically, our findings highlight differential treatment/support after children enter school as an important but understudied mechanism in the early criminalization of Black students. |
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| State of the Union 2019: Student Debt | Susan Dynarski |
State of the Union 2019: Student DebtAuthor: Susan DynarskiPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 06/2019
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education - CPI Affiliates
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David Harding |
Incarceration Research Group Leader, Associate Professor of Sociology |
University of California, Berkeley |
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Greg J. Duncan |
Life Course Research Group Leader, Distinguished Professor of Education |
University of California, Irvine |
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Sean Reardon |
Education Research Group Leader, Life Course Research Group Leader, Professor of Poverty and Inequality |
Stanford University |
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Andrew Penner |
Associate Professor of Sociology |
University of California, Irvine |
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Anna Chmielewski |
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy |
University of Toronto |
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Education - Other Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income Students | Joshua Angrist, David Autor, Amanda Pallais |
Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income StudentsAuthor: Joshua Angrist, David Autor, Amanda PallaisPublisher: National Bureau of Economic Research Date: 09/2020 Financial aid from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) provides exceptionally generous support to a college population similar to that served by a host of state aid programs. In conjunction with STBF, we randomly assigned aid awards to thousands of Nebraska high school graduates from low-income, minority, and first-generation college households. Randomly- assigned STBF awards boost bachelor's (BA) degree completion for students targeting four-year schools by about 8 points. Degree gains are concentrated among four-year applicants who would otherwise have been unlikely to pursue a four-year program. Degree effects are mediated by award-induced increases in credits earned towards a BA in the first year of college. The extent of initial four-year college engagement explains heterogeneous effects by target campus and across covariate subgroups. Most program spending is a transfer, reducing student debt without affecting degree attainment. Award-induced marginal spending is modest. The projected lifetime earnings impact of awards exceeds marginal educational spending for all of the subgroups examined in the study. Projected earnings gains exceed funder costs for low-income, non-white, urban, and first-generation students, and for students with relatively weak academic preparation. |
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| Teacher-to-Classroom Assignment and Student Achievement | Bryan S. Graham, Geert Ridder, Petra M. Thiemann, Gema Zamarro |
Teacher-to-Classroom Assignment and Student AchievementAuthor: Bryan S. Graham, Geert Ridder, Petra M. Thiemann, Gema ZamarroPublisher: National Bureau of Economic Research Date: 07/2020 We study the effects of counterfactual teacher-to-classroom assignments on average student achievement in elementary and middle schools in the US. We use the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) experiment to semiparametrically identify the average reallocation effects (AREs) of such assignments. Our findings suggest that changes in within-district teacher assignments could have appreciable effects on student achievement. Unlike policies which require hiring additional teachers (e.g., class-size reduction measures), or those aimed at changing the stock of teachers (e.g., VAM-guided teacher tenure policies), alternative teacher-to-classroom assignments are resource neutral; they raise student achievement through a more efficient deployment of existing teachers. |
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| Unpacking the Drivers of Racial Disparities in School Suspension and Expulsion | Jayanti Owens, Sara S McLanahan |
Unpacking the Drivers of Racial Disparities in School Suspension and ExpulsionAuthor: Jayanti Owens, Sara S McLanahanPublisher: Social Forces Date: 06/2020 School suspension and expulsion are important forms of punishment that disproportionately affect Black students, with long-term consequences for educational attainment and other indicators of wellbeing. Prior research identifies three mechanisms that help account for racial disparities in suspension and expulsion: between-school sorting, differences in student behaviors, and differences in the treatment and support of students with similar behaviors. We extend this literature by (1) comparing the contributions of these three mechanisms in a single study, (2) assessing behavior and school composition when children enter kindergarten and before most are exposed to school discipline, and (3) using both teacher and parent reports of student behaviors. Decomposition analyses reveal that differential treatment and support account for 46 percent of the Black/White gap in suspension/expulsion, while between-school sorting and differences in behavior account for 21 percent and 9 percent of the gap respectively. Results are similar for boys and girls and robust to the use of school fixed effects and measures of school composition and student behavior at ages 5 and 9. Theoretically, our findings highlight differential treatment/support after children enter school as an important but understudied mechanism in the early criminalization of Black students. |
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| Measuring the Effect of Student Loans on College Persistence | David Card, Alex Solis |
Measuring the Effect of Student Loans on College PersistenceAuthor: David Card, Alex SolisPublisher: National Bureau of Economic Research Date: 05/2020 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 on the impacts of loan eligibility for university students who retake the national admission test after their first year of studies. Those who score above a certain threshold become eligible for loans covering around 85% of tuition costs for the duration of their program. We find that access to loans increases the fraction who return to university for a second year by 20 percentage points, with two-thirds of the effect arising from a reduction in transfers to vocational colleges and one-third from a decline in the share who stop post-secondary schooling altogether. The longer-run impacts are smaller but remain highly significant, with a 12 percentage point impact on the fraction of marginally eligible retakers who complete a bachelor's degree. |
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| Heterogeneous Effects of Early Algebra across California Middle Schools | Andrew McEachin, Thurston Domina, Andrew Penner |
Heterogeneous Effects of Early Algebra across California Middle SchoolsAuthor: Andrew McEachin, Thurston Domina, Andrew PennerPublisher: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Date: 02/2020 How should schools assign students to more rigorous math courses so as best to help their academic outcomes? We identify several hundred California middle schools that used 7th‐grade test scores to place students into 8th‐grade algebra courses and use a regression discontinuity design to estimate average impacts and heterogeneity across schools. Enrolling in 8th‐grade algebra boosts students’ enrollment in advanced math in ninth grade by 30 percentage points and eleventh grade by 16 percentage points. Math scores in tenth grade rise by 0.05 standard deviations. Women, students of color, and English‐language learners benefit disproportionately from placement into early algebra. Importantly, the benefits of 8th‐grade algebra are substantially larger in schools that set their eligibility threshold higher in the baseline achievement distribution. This suggests a potential tradeoff between increased access and rates of subsequent math success. |
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