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
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| Recent Trends in Income, Racial, and Ethnic School Readiness Gaps at Kindergarten Entry | Sean F. Reardon, Ximena A. Portilla |
Recent Trends in Income, Racial, and Ethnic School Readiness Gaps at Kindergarten EntryAuthor: Sean F. Reardon, Ximena A. PortillaPublisher: AERA Open Date: 08/2016 Academic achievement gaps between high- and low-income students born in the 1990s were much larger than between cohorts born two decades earlier. Racial/ethnic achievement gaps declined during the same period. To determine whether these two trends have continued in more recent cohorts, we examine trends in several dimensions of school readiness, including academic achievement, self-control, externalizing behavior, and a measure of students’ approaches to learning, for cohorts born from the early 1990s to the 2000–2010 midperiod. We use data from nationally representative samples of kindergarteners (ages 5–6) in 1998 ( n = 20,220), 2006 ( n = 6,600), and 2010 ( n = 16,980) to estimate trends in racial/ethnic and income school readiness gaps. We find that readiness gaps narrowed modestly from 1998 to 2010, particularly between high- and low-income students and between White and Hispanic students. |
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| Linking U.S. School District Test Score Distributions to a Common Scale, 2009-2013 | Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, Andrew Ho |
Linking U.S. School District Test Score Distributions to a Common Scale, 2009-2013Author: Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, Andrew HoPublisher: Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis Date: 04/2016 In the U.S., there is no recent database of district-level test scores that is comparable across states. We construct and evaluate such a database for years 2009-2013 to support large-scale educational research. First, we derive transformations that link each state test score scale to the scale of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Next, we apply these transformations to a unique nationwide database of district-level means and standard deviations, obtaining estimates of each districts’ test score distribution expressed on the NAEP measurement scale. We then conduct a series of validation analyses designed to assess the validity of key assumptions underlying the methods and to assess the extent to which the districts’ transformed distributions match the districts’ actual NAEP score distributions (for a small subset of districts where the NAEP assessments are administered). We also examine the correlations of our estimates with district test score distributions on a second “audit test”—the NWEA MAP test, which is administered to populations of students in several thousand school districts nationwide. Our linking method yields estimated district means with a root mean square deviation from actual NAEP scores of roughly 1/10th of a standard deviation unit in any single year or grade. The correlations of our estimates with average district means over years and grades are .97-.98 for NAEP and 0.93 for the NWEA test. We conclude that the linking method is accurate enough to be used in large-scale educational research about national variation in district achievement, but that the small amount of linking error in the methods renders fine-grained distinctions or rankings among districts in different states invalid. |
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| State of the Union 2016: Education | Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. Reardon |
State of the Union 2016: EducationAuthor: Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. ReardonPublisher: Date: 02/2016 The income achievement gap in the United States is quite large relative to the 19 OECD countries examined here. Countries with higher levels of poverty, inequality, and economic segregation (among schools) tend to have larger income achievement gaps. |
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| Revisiting the "Americano Dream" | Van C. Tran |
Revisiting the "Americano Dream"Author: Van C. TranPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 05/2015 Is Latino assimilation stalling out because of the recent recession, rising deportation rates, and the growing popularity of rural destinations? |
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| State of the States: Education | Sean F. Reardon |
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education - CPI Affiliates
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Karl Alexander |
John Dewey Professor Emeritus Sociology; Academy Professor in The Academy at JHU/KSAS |
Johns Hopkins University |
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Solomon Polachek |
University Distinguished Professor; IZA Research Fellow |
Binghamton University |
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Joy Ann Williamson |
Professor, History of Education; Associate Dean, Graduate Studies |
University of Washington, College of Education |
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Julie-Berry Cullen |
Professor of Economics, Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research |
University of California, San Diego |
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Martin Carnoy |
Vida Jacks Professor of Education |
Stanford University |
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Education - Other Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| High School Choices and the Gender Gap in STEM | David Card, A. Abigail Payne |
High School Choices and the Gender Gap in STEMAuthor: David Card, A. Abigail PaynePublisher: NBER Date: 09/2017 Women who graduate from university are less likely than men to specialize in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). We use detailed administrative data for a recent cohort of high school students in Ontario, Canada, combined with data from the province's university admission system to analyze the dynamic process leading to this gap. We show that entry to STEM programs is mediated through an index of STEM readiness based on end-of-high-school courses in math and science. Most of the gender gap in STEM entry can be traced to differences in the rate of STEM readiness; less than a fifth is due to differences in the choice of major conditional on readiness. We then use high school course data to decompose the gap in STEM readiness among university entrants into two channels: one reflecting the gender gap in the fraction of high school students with the necessary prerequisites to enter STEM, and a second arising from differences in the fractions of females and males who enter university. The gender gap in the fraction of students with STEM prerequisites is small. The main factor is the lower university entry rate by men – a difference that is due to the lower fraction of non-science oriented males who complete enough advanced level courses to qualify for university entry. We conclude that differences in course-taking patterns and preferences for STEM conditional on readiness contribute to male-female differences in the rate of entering STEM, but that the main source of the gap is the lower overall rate of university attendance by men. |
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| Women’s Progress for Men’s Gain? Gender-Specific Changes in the Return to Education as Measured by Family Standard of Living, 1990 to 2009–2011 | ChangHwan Kim, Arthur Sakamoto |
Women’s Progress for Men’s Gain? Gender-Specific Changes in the Return to Education as Measured by Family Standard of Living, 1990 to 2009–2011Author: ChangHwan Kim, Arthur SakamotoPublisher: Demography Date: 08/2017 This study investigates gender-specific changes in the total financial return to education among persons of prime working ages (35–44 years) using U.S. Census data from 1990 and 2000, and the 2009–2011 American Community Survey. We define the total financial return to education as the family standard of living as measured by family income adjusted for family size. Our results indicate that women experienced significant progress in educational attainment and labor market outcomes over this time period. Ironically, married women’s progress in education and personal earnings has led to greater improvement in the family standard of living for married men than for women themselves. Gender-specific changes in assortative mating are mostly responsible for this paradoxical trend. Because the number of highly educated women exceeds the number of highly educated men in the marriage market, the likelihood of educational marrying up has substantially increased for men over time while women’s likelihood has decreased. Sensitivity analyses show that the greater improvement in the family standard of living for men than for women is not limited to prime working-age persons but is also evident in the general population. Consequently, women’s return to education through marriage declined while men’s financial gain through marriage increased considerably. |
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| Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men? | Adriana D. Kugler, Catherine H. Tinsley, Olga Ukhaneva |
Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?Author: Adriana D. Kugler, Catherine H. Tinsley, Olga UkhanevaPublisher: NBER Date: 08/2017 Recent work suggests that women are more responsive to negative feedback than men in certain environments. We examine whether negative feedback in the form of relatively low grades in major-related classes explains gender differences in the final majors undergraduates choose. We use unique administrative data from a large private university on the East Coast from 2009-2016 to test whether women are more sensitive to grades than men, and whether the gender composition of major-related classes affects major changes. We also control for other factors that may affect a student's final major including: high school student performance, gender of faculty, and economic returns of majors. Finally, we examine how students' decisions are affected by external cues that signal STEM fields as masculine. The results show that high school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and that women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses. Moreover, women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues. Women are, however, more likely to switch out of male-dominated STEM majors in response to poor performance compared to men. Therefore, we find that it takes multiple signals of lack of fit into a major (low grades, gender composition of class, and external stereotyping signals) to impel female students to switch majors. |
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| Women, Work, and Family | Francine D. Blau, Anne E. Winkler |
Women, Work, and FamilyAuthor: Francine D. Blau, Anne E. WinklerPublisher: NBER Date: 08/2017 This chapter focuses on women, work, and family, with a particular focus on differences by educational attainment. First, we review long-term trends regarding family structure, participation in the labor market, and time spent in household production, including time with children. In looking at family, we focus on mothers with children. Next we examine key challenges faced by mothers as they seek to combine motherhood and paid work: workforce interruptions associated with childbearing, the impact of home and family responsibilities, and constraints posed by workplace culture. We also consider the role that gendered norms play in shaping outcomes for mothers. We conclude by discussing policies that have the potential to increase gender equality in the workplace and mitigate the considerable conflicts faced by many women as they seek to balance work and family. |
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| An Analysis of the Memphis Nurse-Family Partnership Program | James J. Heckman, Margaret L. Holland, Kevin K. Makino, Rodrigo Pinto, Maria Rosales-Rueda |
An Analysis of the Memphis Nurse-Family Partnership ProgramAuthor: James J. Heckman, Margaret L. Holland, Kevin K. Makino, Rodrigo Pinto, Maria Rosales-RuedaPublisher: NBER Date: 07/2017 This paper evaluates a randomized controlled trial of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program conducted in Memphis, TN in 1990. NFP offers home visits conducted by nurses for disadvantaged first-time mothers during pregnancy and early childhood. We test NFP treatment effects using permutation-based inference that accounts for the NFP randomization protocol. Our methodology is valid for small samples and corrects for multiple-hypothesis testing. We also analyze the underlying mechanisms generating these treatment effects. We decompose NFP treatment effects into components associated with the intervention-enhanced parenting and early childhood skills. The NFP improves home investments, parenting attitudes and mental health for mothers of infants at age 2. At age 6, the NFP boosts cognitive skills for both genders and socio-emotional skills for females. These treatment effects are explained by program-induced improvements in maternal traits and early-life family investments. At age 12, the treatment effects for males (but not for females) persist in the form of enhanced achievement test scores. Treatment effects are largely explained by enhanced cognitive skills at age 6. Our evidence of pronounced gender differences in response to early childhood interventions contributes to a growing literature on this topic. |
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Education - Multimedia
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