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We use administrative panel data from seven states covering nearly 3 million students to document and explore variation in "academic mobility," a term we use to describe the extent to which students' ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their public schooling careers. On average, we show that student ranks are highly persistent during elementary and secondary education--that is, academic mobility is limited in U.S. schools as a whole. Still, there is non-negligible variation in the degree of upward mobility across some student subgroups as well as individual school districts. On average, districts that exhibit the greatest upward academic mobility serve more socioeconomically advantaged populations and have higher value-added to student achievement.

There is empirical evidence of substantial heterogeneity in economic mobility across geographic areas and the efficacy of schools has been suggested as an explanatory factor. Using administrative microdata from seven states covering nearly 3 million students, we explore the potential role of schools in promoting economic mobility by estimating cross-district variation in "academic mobility"--a term we use to describe the extent to which students' ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their schooling careers. We show that there exists considerable heterogeneity in academic mobility across school districts. However, after aggregating our district-level measures of academic mobility to the commuting-zone level and merging them with geographically matched external estimates of economic mobility, we find little scope for geographic differences in academic mobility to meaningfully account for differences in economic mobility.

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs) in 26 states have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. We provide a comprehensive description of how individual reforms affected resource allocation to low- and high-income districts within states, including both financial and non-financial outcomes. After summarizing the heterogeneity of individual SFR impacts, we then examine its correlates, identifying both policy and legislative/political factors. Taken together, this research aims to provide a rich description of variation in states' responses to SFRs, as well as explanation of this heterogeneity as it relates to contextual factors.

The education system of the United States is not adequately preparing a large proportion of its students for college, career-training, and, ultimately, jobs that provide enough income to support a middle class standard of living. Because the education system has failed to attain hoped-for outcomes, some states are investigating new systems, including competency-based education (CBE). A model based on CBE starts by assessing what a student knows and then allows that student to advance at a pace that reflects his or her knowledge and skills. In the process, CBE encourages student success by providing targeted learning support, thereby creating a more personalized educational experience. Once in higher education or job training, CBE allows older students (traditional-age college students or adult learners) to learn on their own time at their own pace. As competency-based pilot projects are developed in kindergarten to high school classrooms and schools (K-12) and higher education institutions, policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels are discussing options about how to support and expand CBE in both K-12 and higher education, as well as strengthen the bridge between the two systems. CBE has the potential to improve the education system of the United States by allowing more students to receive the support they need when they need it to learn effectively and master the desired content and skills, and governors are in a position to bring these efforts together and explore the transition from an education system that holds time constant and varies what students learn to a CBE system that varies time but holds content mastery constant. The promise of such a system is that it can adjust the methods of instruction and assistance to provide deeper, more personalized learning and help ensure that all students meet or exceed the high expectations of rigorous and relevant standards.

Building a stronger teacher workforce requires the thoughtful orchestration of multiple processes working together in a human capital system. This white paper presents a framework that can be used to take stock of current efforts to enhance the teacher workforce in school districts or educational organizations, as well as their underlying theories of how the teacher workforce improves over time. The paper refines and provides evidentiary support for a human capital system framework composed of four subsystems that ideally work together to build a stronger teacher workforce: (1) getting the right teachers in the right positions on time (Acquire); (2) supporting professional growth in school-based learning communities (Develop); (3) nurturing, rewarding, and challenging high-performing teachers (Sustain); and (4) informing evidence-based personnel decisions (Evaluate). Attention to this framework will engender a corps of teachers with the capacity and expertise to collectively facilitate enhanced educational outcomes.

When Congress reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), much of the debate will undoubtedly focus on the accountability requirements added to Title I by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Title I authorizes federal aid to school districts to educate low-achieving children in low-income areas. Among the most controversial of these NCLB requirements are the provisions for determining whether schools and districts have made adequate yearly progress (AYP) in raising student achievement in reading and mathematics. This background paper from the Center on Education Policy (CEP) explores some of the factors that have influenced recent trends in the national percentage of public schools that have not made AYP, out of the total number of schools that reported AYP results. This paper is intended to serve as a companion to the report, "Update with 2009-10 Data and Five-Year Trends: How Many Schools Have Not Made Adequate Yearly Progress?" (CEP, 2011). As discussed in more detail in that five-year trend report, the national percentage of public schools failing to make AYP rose from 29% in 2006 to an estimated 38% in 2010 and actually decreased in two of the interim years. Although 38% is a record high percentage of schools not making AYP, it is still lower than what many observers had predicted by this point in NCLB implementation. CEP's analysis focused on 10 large or medium-sized states that had the greatest increases or decreases in the number of schools not making AYP or had other noteworthy AYP trends: California, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. Its analysis revealed several factors, in addition to changes in student learning, that appear to account for some of the fluctuations in the national percentage of schools not making AYP and may help explain why these percentages have not escalated as quickly as some analysts have predicted. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) National trends in the percentage of schools not making AYP have been affected disproportionately by trends in a limited subset of states; (2) Changes in state testing policies have slowed, or even reversed, increases in the number of schools failing to make AYP in several states; (3) The NCLB "safe harbor" provision has also helped somewhat in keeping down the share of schools failing to make AYP in certain states; (4) The use of growth models appears to have had a limited impact on AYP trends in most of the growth model states analyzed; (5) In most of the states analyzed, the number of schools failing to make AYP increased substantially in the years when the state's achievement targets went up; (6) States that introduced new tests saw substantial short-term increases or decreases in the number of schools failing to make AYP; (7) In some states, changes in the number of schools not making AYP are largely attributable to changes in the cut scores defining "proficient" performance on state tests; (8) North Carolina's experience suggests that counting proficient scores from retests can reduce the number of schools failing to make AYP--especially in the short term; and (9) Even if most or all states adopt common standards and common assessments, variations in state accountability policies could continue to make it impossible to arrive at meaningful comparisons about the performance of different states. (Contains 6 footnotes.) [For the companion report, "Update with 2009-10 Data and Five-Year Trends: How Many Schools Have Not Made Adequate Yearly Progress?," see ED518993.]

ICF International's white paper explores how implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) has the potential to prepare students for workforce success and positively influence student engagement and academic performance while reducing dropout rates. Self-improvement and leadership development sections of bookstores are replete with texts advocating for the integral relationship that emotional intelligence plays in the development of an effective workforce. Is there an advantage to developing emotional intelligence prior to entering the workforce? (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Digital learning makes possible the "unbundling" of school provisions--that is, it allows children to be served by providers from almost anywhere, in new and more customized ways. At the same time, because it destandardizes and decentralizes educational delivery, digital education is far harder to bring under the yoke of the quality-control systems and metrics that have been devised for traditional school structures. In this paper, Hess explores the pros and cons of input regulation, outcome-based accountability, and market signals as solutions to the quality challenge. In the end, he recommends using all three approaches in careful combination so as to leverage their strengths and offset their weaknesses. In practice, that means demanding transparent financial information from providers, holding them to account for student achievement gains whenever possible, and developing "crowd-sourcing" reporting systems to help educators, parents, and students identify the most effective purveyors of online learning. (Contains 14 footnotes.)

Although much has been written about the importance of leadership in the determination of organizational success, there is little quantitative evidence due to the difficulty of separating the impact of leaders from other organizational components--particularly in the public sector. Schools provide an especially rich environment for studying the impact of public sector management, not only because of the hypothesized importance of leadership but also because of the plentiful achievement data that provide information on institutional outcomes. Outcome-based estimates of principal value-added to student achievement reveal significant variation in principal quality that appears to be larger for high-poverty schools. Alternate lower-bound estimates based on direct estimation of the variance yield smaller estimates of the variation in principal productivity but ones that are still important, particularly for high poverty schools. Patterns of teacher exits by principal quality validate the notion that a primary channel for principal influence is the management of the teacher force. Finally, looking at principal transitions by quality reveals little systematic evidence that more effective leaders have a higher probability of exiting high poverty schools. (Contains 10 tables, 1 figure and 27 footnotes.)

Much has been written about the importance of school leadership, but there is surprisingly little systematic evidence on this topic. This paper presents preliminary estimates of key elements of the market for school principals, employing rich panel data on principals from Texas State. The consideration of teacher movements across schools suggests that principals follow patterns quite similar to those of teachers--preferring schools that have less demands as indicated by higher income students, higher achieving students, and fewer minority students. Looking at the impact of principals on student achievement, the authors find some small but significant effects of the tenure of a principal in a school. More significant, however, are the estimates of variations in principal effectiveness. The variation in principal effectiveness tends to be largest in high poverty schools, consistent with hypothesis that principal ability is most important in schools serving the most disadvantaged students. Finally, considering principal mobility, the authors find that principals who stay in a school tend to be more effective than those who move to other schools. (Contains 9 tables and 8 footnotes.)

The authors observe that: (1) arts education is in trouble; (2) for a variety of reasons, museums are a rational choice of institution to work towards reversing that trend; and (3) museums are generally willing to undertake such a role, but are in need of assistance to do so. The authors advocate that targeted philanthropy can provide such assistance, and describe the partnership of the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation with the New Media Consortium (NMC) to help museums across Texas learn to scale education efforts to produce measurable outcomes that can make a difference. Project rationale, objectives and lessons learned are shared. (Contains 12 footnotes.) [This paper was published as part of NMC's Digital Education Project for Texas Art Museums,]

Search theory suggests that early career job changes on balance lead to better matches that benefit both workers and firms, but this may not hold true in teacher labor markets characterized by salary rigidities, barriers to entry, and substantial differences in working conditions that are difficult for institutions to alter. Education policy makers are particularly concerned that teacher turnover may have adverse effects on the quality of instruction in schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children. Although these schools experience higher turnover, on average, than other schools, the impact on the quality of instruction depends on whether more productive teachers are more likely to depart. In Texas, the availability of matched panel data of students and teachers enables the isolation of teachers' contributions to achievement despite the intricacies of the choices of families, teachers, and administrators. Teachers who remain in their school tend to outperform those who leave, particularly those who exit Texas public schools entirely. This gap is larger for schools serving mainly low income students--evidence that high turnover is not nearly as damaging as many suggest. Correspondence Between Assignment into Sorted and Not-sorted Categories by Test Statistic is appended. (Contains 13 tables, 2 figures and 25 footnotes.)

This report describes how two school districts in Texas supported the achievement of English language learners (ELLs) beyond classroom instruction, through ancillary education enrichment opportunities with Title III funds. These particular districts were identified as those with some of the most successful ELL programs, as determined by improvement in student achievement. One district has one of the largest ELL populations, proportionally, and the other is the third largest in Texas. The districts' reported practices fell into three major categories: adult education that impacts parental involvement at school and school-related home support of ELLs; teachers' or schools' support activities that increase and/or enrich their value as resources for ELLs; and student services that go beyond classroom instruction and help districts cope with the diverse background of ELLs entering their schools. Each of these areas of support is described in this report.

In fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project to test new approaches to measuring effective teaching. The goal of the MET project is to improve the quality of information about teaching effectiveness available to education professionals within states and districts--information that will help them build fair and reliable systems for measuring teacher effectiveness that can be used for a variety of purposes, including feedback, development, and continuous improvement. The project includes nearly 3000 teachers who volunteered to help researchers identify a better approach to teacher development and evaluation, located in six predominantly urban school districts across the country: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools (including Tampa, Florida), Memphis City Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. As part of the project, multiple data sources are being collected and analyzed over two school years, including student achievement gains on state assessments and supplemental assessments designed to assess higher-order conceptual understanding; classroom observations and teacher reflections on their practice; assessments of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge; student perceptions of the classroom instructional environment; and teachers' perceptions of working conditions and instructional support at their schools. The current findings include: (1) In every grade and subject, a teacher's past track record of value-added is among the strongest predictors of their students' achievement gains in other classes and academic years. A teacher's value-added fluctuates from year-to-year and from class-to-class, as succeeding cohorts of students move through their classrooms. However, that volatility is not so large as to undercut the usefulness of value-added as an indicator (imperfect, but still informative) of future performance; (2) Teachers with high value-added on state tests tend to promote deeper conceptual understanding as well; (3) Teachers have larger effects on math achievement than on achievement in reading or English Language Arts, at least as measured on state assessments; and (4) Student perceptions of a given teacher's strengths and weaknesses are consistent across the different groups of students they teach. Moreover, students seem to know effective teaching when they experience it: student perceptions in one class are related to the achievement gains in other classes taught by the same teacher. Most important are students' perception of a teacher's ability to control a classroom and to challenge students with rigorous work. Appended are: (1) Sample 8th Grade BAM Item; and (2) Example from Stanford 9 Open-Ended Reading Assessment. (Contains 1 figure, 11 tables and 14 footnotes.) [For "Learning about Teaching: Initial Findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project. Policy Brief. MET Project," see ED528388.]

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these effects. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among teachers at varying ages of separation. Compared to a neutral system, often about half of an entering cohort's net pension wealth is redistributed to teachers who separate in their fifties from those who separate earlier. There is some variation across six state systems. This implies large costs for interstate mobility. Estimates show teachers who split a thirty-year career between two pension plans often lose over half their net pension wealth compared to teachers who complete a career in a single system. Plan options that permit purchases of service years mitigate few or none of these losses. It is difficult to explain these patterns of costs and benefits on efficiency grounds. More likely explanations include the relative influence of senior versus junior educators in interest group politics and a coordination problem between states. (Contains 7 tables, 16 figures, and 40 footnotes.)

Gaps in early learning are starkly apparent among differing children even before they enter kindergarten. So, a rising number of states are trying to narrow initial achievement disparities by expanding access to quality preschool. At the same time, recent findings show that preschool is not a lasting inoculation: its benefits fade if children move from preschool to dreary elementary schools. So, efforts to advance quality preschooling, especially for children from poor and blue-collar families, will be more effective when the quality of public schools climbs in parallel fashion. Two states--New Jersey and Texas--offer laboratories for understanding how preschool and K-12 finance reforms can be interwoven over time and implemented in concert to raise quality at both levels. This study yields three sets of lessons for California and other states: (1) Advancing simple and equitable finance mechanisms; (2) Unifying mixed-markets of preschool providers; and (3) Widening access while improving quality. Overall, this study details how two large states are simplifying funding streams, progressively expanding access, and improving classroom quality. In New Jersey these efforts stem from a specific mandate by the state courts to equalize opportunity, and the preschool sector is a key part. In Texas pro-equity groups have succeeded in widening support for preschool expansion, and these policy efforts are becoming one element in long-running efforts to more adequately fund the schools. (Contains 3 tables, 4 figures, 1 box, and 79 endnotes.)

This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Previous evidence suggests that schools can be reopened safely if community spread is low and public health guidelines are followed. However, in Texas, reopenings often occurred alongside high community spread and at near capacity, making it difficult to meet social distancing recommendations. Using event-study models and hand-collected instruction modality and start dates for all school districts, we find robust evidence that reopening Texas schools gradually but substantially accelerated the community spread of COVID-19. Results from our preferred specification imply that school reopenings led to at least 43,000 additional COVID-19 cases and 800 additional fatalities within the first two months. We then use SafeGraph mobility data to provide evidence that spillovers to adults' behaviors contributed to these large effects. Median time spent outside the home on a typical weekday increased substantially in neighborhoods with large numbers of school-age children, suggesting a return to in-person work or increased outside-of-home leisure activities among parents.

Florida and Texas have tied evaluation of preservice teacher programs to performance measures. These reforms may have an impact on the functioning of teacher education programs within their institutions of higher education (IHE's). In 1996, Florida's State Board of Education adopted the Florida Education Standards Commission's (ECS) Recommendation on Performance Standards for Continuing Program Approval of Preservice Teacher Education Programs. This includes five indicators or performance standards for continuing preservice program approval: candidate demonstration of knowledge and skills upon preservice completion; successful performance on the Florida Teacher Certification Examination; inclusion of program components mandated by state statute or rule; diversity of enrollment in preservice programs; and satisfaction of employing districts with beginning teachers. Initial program approval for IHE's involves submitting curriculum folios for each program then completing an on-site review by the Department of Education Board of Regents and NCATE. Once approved, programs must undergo continued review and approval. The Texas system of preservice program evaluation is the ASEP (Accountability System for Educator Preparation), which includes two components. The first is a set of state generated exams which must be active by late 1998. The second is a performance evaluation that must be active by 2002. The performance evaluation states that poor performance by any subgroup of students, even if overall scores are acceptable, puts the institution or program under review. In both states, these standards will ensure that IHE's be treated similarly by the state boards. (SM)

This paper describes state, institutional, and other community-based programs deemed exemplary (on the basis of design imperatives) for successful interventions to promote meaningful access of minority group youth to postsecondary education. The imperatives include early intervention, comprehensive and integrated intervention, intervention sustained for ongoing feedback and tracking, coordination with other education and training programs, and broad and long-term strategies providing a continuum of age-appropriate services. Following a general introduction, chapter 2, on state programs, describes programs developed by Arizona, Ohio, California, Texas, New York, Wisconsin, Washington, and Mississippi. Chapter 3 describes association and institutional programs including: "Syracuse Challenge," which provides support services to students from sixth grade on; "Middle College High School," an alternative high school housed in a New York City community college; "Career Beginnings," which uses a "case management" approach beginning in the high school junior year; "Mathematics, Engineer, Sciences Achievement," a program that encourages California minority students in grades 3-12 in these areas; and the "Hispanic Student Success Program" in San Antonio (Texas). Chapter 4 describes community-based programs like the "I Have a Dream" program, which began as a pledge by philanthropist of Eugene Lang to provide college tuition to Harlem sixth graders and later turned into a national foundation. Chapter 5 outlines federal programs, particularly the "Special Programs for Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds" effort. Chapter 6 draws conclusions and suggests recommendations. (Includes 16 endnotes.) (JB)

This study describes the teacher pay for performance plans designed and implemented by the public schools participating in the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program in Texas. GEEG is a federally funded, incentive pay program that awarded non-competitive grants, ranging from $60,000 to $220,000 each year for three years, to 99 Texas public schools. Schools participating in GEEG took advantage of the considerable discretion granted to them by the Texas Education Agency to design incentive plans exhibiting an array of differences on several key plan variables. This study explores the following research questions: (1) How did schools propose to distribute awards to teachers and how were those awards actually distributed in practice? (2) What is the relationship between teacher characteristics and the dollar amounts awarded to teachers in the GEEG plans? (3) What are the determinants of GEEG plan characteristics and the distribution of awards? (Contains 4 figures, 5 tables and 38 endnotes.) [This paper was prepared for "Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12]Education" in Nashville, Tennessee on February 28, 2008.]

Our education system is in desperate need of innovation. Despite radical advances in nearly every other sector, public school students continue to attend school in the same buildings and according to the same schedule as students did more than a hundred years ago, and performance is either stagnant or worsening. One of the most important innovations in the past half-century is the emergence of charter schools, which, when first introduced in 1991, came with two distinct promises: to serve as an escape hatch for students in failing schools, and to create and incubate new educational practices. We examine charter schools across the quality spectrum in order to learn which practices separate high-achieving from low-achieving schools. An expansive data collection and analysis project in New York City charter schools yielded an index of five educational practices that explains nearly half of the difference between high- and low-performing schools. We then draw on preliminary evidence from demonstration projects in Houston and Denver and find the effects on student achievement to be strikingly similar to those of many high-performing charter schools and networks. The magnitude of the problems in our education system is enormous, but this preliminary evidence points to a path forward to save the 3 million students in our nation's worst-performing schools, for a price of about $6 billion, or less than $2,000 per student. (Contains 1 table, 2 boxes, 3 figures and 5 endnotes.)

This study examines why 51 schools declined an invitation to participate in a state-funded educator incentive initiative, the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program. Using data from an ongoing evaluation of the TEEG program conducted by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) under contract with Texas Education Agency, this article examines reservations that school leaders expressed about participating in the program. Findings suggest that schools' decisions were less about outright opposition to performance incentive policies in education and more about the interplay between a school's organizational context and particular features of the TEEG program. Specific concerns included that: (1) guidelines for distributing awards to school personnel were inequitable; (2) performance incentives might be detrimental to a school's culture; (3) the school selection process did not recognize other teachers' or schools' contribution to students' academic success; and (4) time demands and technical expertise needed to implement the program outweighed perceived benefits. Many school leaders described these concerns as being even more problematic in small districts and schools. Future efforts to implement similar programs should consider the appropriate balance between state guidelines and local flexibility, clearly communicate program guidelines and regulations, offer technical assistance, and allow sufficient time for schools to plan their educator incentive programs. Interview Protocol is appended. (Contains 2 tables and 11 footnotes.)

In the last three decennia, many governments have introduced market mechanisms in education. They have done so by enhancing parental choice and encouraging school competition, through policies like abolishing catchment areas, creating voucher programmes and setting up charter schools. These market mechanisms have given rise to fierce debates in both political and scientific circles. However, most prior reviews of research literature in this area have concluded that the effects of market mechanisms in education are small, if they are found at all. This review tries to answer the question why that is the case, by analysing the causal pathways that link market mechanisms to educational outcomes and by reviewing the empirical evidence for each step along those causal pathways. The findings of this review point to the need for a nuanced and qualified discussion about market mechanisms in education. What market mechanisms mean in actual practice strongly depends on (local) contexts, while the impact of market mechanisms is related to other policies impacting on parental choice behaviour as well as actions taken by schools. Appended are: (1) Country Case Studies; and (2) Terminology. Notes are also included. (Contains 1 table.)

Pay for performance is a popular public education reform, and millions of dollars are currently being targeted for pay for performance programs. These reforms are popular because economic and management theories suggest that well-designed incentive pay programs could improve teacher effectiveness. There is little evidence about the characteristics of a well-designed incentive pay plan for teachers, however. This study takes advantage of a recent natural experiment in Texas to explore the optimal design of teacher incentive plans. We find that when given the opportunity, teachers design relatively weak incentive pay plans. In turn, those relatively weak incentives do not appear to have induced any significant changes in teacher productivity, although they did have a significant impact on teacher turnover. As such, our evidence suggests that the types of incentives that appeal to teachers (and their unions) may not be optimal from the employer perspective. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures and 20 footnotes.)

Recent studies have used increasingly complex methodologies to estimate the effect of peer characteristics--race, poverty, and ability--on student achievement. A paper by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin using Texas state testing data has received particularly wide attention because it found a large negative effect of school percent black on black math achievement. This paper replicates the HKR models using state testing data from North and South Carolina and national testing data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. The replications fail to support the Texas results. In most models tested, black peer effects are small and not statistically significant, and in the few instances where effects are significant, they are much weaker than those found in Texas. Moreover, it appears that computational problems in the HKR study led to incorrect estimates for black peer effects. An appendix is included. (Contains 8 tables, 5 figures and 15 footnotes.)

Substantial uncertainty exists about the impact of school quality on the black-white achievement gap. Our results, based on both Texas Schools Project (TSP) administrative data and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS), differ noticeably from other recent analyses of the black-white achievement gap by providing strong evidence that schools have a substantial effect on the differential. The majority of the expansion of the achievement gap with age occurs between rather than within schools, and specific school and peer factors exert a significant effect on the growth in the achievement gap. Unequal distributions of inexperienced teachers and of racial concentrations in schools can explain all of the increased achievement gap between grades 3 and 8. Moreover, non-random sample attrition for school changers and much higher rates of special education classification and grade retention for blacks appears to lead to a significant understatement of the increase in the achievement gap with age within the ECLS and other data sets. (Contains 20 tables, 2 figures and 42 footnotes.) An appendix is included which develops the decomposition presented in equation (1). [Support for this work has been provided by the Packard Humanities Institute.]

This paper describes an experiment designed to investigate the impact of aligning student, parent, and teacher incentives on student achievement. On outcomes for which incentives were provided, there were large treatment effects. Students in treatment schools mastered more than one standard deviation more math objectives than control students, and their parents attended almost twice as many parent-teacher conferences. In contrast, on related outcomes that were not incentivized (e.g. standardized test scores, parental engagement), we observe both positive and negative effects. We argue that these facts are consistent with a moral hazard model with multiple tasks, though other explanations are possible.

The racial achievement gap in education is an important social problem to which decades of research have yielded no scalable solutions. Recent evidence from "No Excuses" charter schools--which demonstrates that some combination of school inputs can educate the poorest minority children--offers a guiding light. In the 2010-2011 school year, we implemented five strategies gleaned from best practices in "No Excuses" charter schools--increased instructional time, a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations--in nine of the lowest performing middle and high schools in Houston, Texas. We show that the average impact of these changes on student achievement is 0.276 standard deviations in math and 0.059 standard deviations in reading, which is strikingly similar to reported impacts of attending the Harlem Children's Zone and Knowledge is Power Program schools--two strict "No Excuses" adherents. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of the scalability of the experiment.

This paper explores the phenomenon referred to as test score inflation, which occurs when achievement gains on "high-stakes" exams outpace improvements on "low-stakes" tests. The first part of the paper documents the extent to which student performance trends on state assessments differ from those on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). I find evidence of considerable test score inflation in several different states, including those with quite different state testing systems. The second part of the paper is a case study of Texas that uses detailed item-level data from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) and the NAEP to explore why performance trends differed across these exams during the 1990s. I find that the differential improvement on the TAAS cannot be explained by several important differences across the exams (e.g., the NAEP includes open-response items, many NAEP multiple-choice items require/permit the use of calculators, rulers, protractors or other manipulative). I find that skill and format differences across exams explain the disproportionate improvement in the TAAS for fourth graders, although these differences cannot explain the time trends for eighth graders.

We use data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel (TSMP) to examine the extent to which dropouts use the GED as a route to post-secondary education. The paper develops a model pointing out the potential biases in estimating the effects of taking the "GED path" to postsecondary education. Lacking suitable instruments that would allow us to directly address potential biases, our approach is to base our estimates on a set of academically "at risk" students who are very similar in the 8th grade. We observe that the eventual high school graduates in this group have much better postsecondary education outcomes than do the similar at-risk 8th graders who dropped out and obtained a GED. Our model explains the observed differences, and allows for a discussion of the policy challenges inherent in improving the postsecondary outcomes of dropouts.

Search theory suggests that early career job changes on balance lead to better matches that benefit both workers and firms, but this may not hold in teacher labor markets characterized by salary rigidities, barriers to entry, and substantial differences in working conditions that are difficult for institutions to alter. Of particular concern to education policy makers is the possibility that teacher turnover adversely affects the quality of instruction in schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children. Although such schools experience higher turnover on average than others, the impact on the quality of instruction depends crucially on whether it is the more productive teachers who are more likely to depart. The absence of direct measures of productivity typically hinders efforts to measure the effect of turnover on worker quality. In the case of teachers, however, the availability of matched panel data of students and teachers, enables the isolation of the contributions of teachers to achievement despite the complications of purposeful choices of families, teachers, and administrators. The empirical analysis reveals that teachers who remain in their school tend to outperform those who leave, particularly those who exit the Texas public schools entirely. Moreover, this gap appears to be larger for schools serving predominantly low income students, evidence that high turnover is not nearly as damaging as many suggest.

In 2005, hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced many children to relocate across the Southeast. While schools quickly enrolled evacuees, receiving families worried about the impact of evacuees on non-evacuee students. Data from Houston and Louisiana show that, on average, the influx of evacuees moderately reduced elementary math test scores in Houston. We reject linear-in-means models of peer effects and find evidence of a highly non-linear but monotonic model--student achievement improves with high ability and worsens with low ability peers. Moreover, exposure to undisciplined evacuees increased native absenteeism and disciplinary problems, supporting a "bad apple" model in behavior.

Rural students in Arizona enjoy far more education choice options than rural students in any other state. Education has flourished in rural areas under Arizona's robust choice environment just as much as in the remainder of the state. The data could not be clearer: Rural students with expanded opportunities thrive, as do their teachers and communities. A one-size-fits-all education system in fact fits few students and teachers, whereas a pluralistic and diverse system of schools fits more students and teachers. When families have many options to choose from, district schools will have a strong incentive to improve. If Texas lawmakers empower their educators to create new schools, educators will rise to the challenge, both inside and outside the school system. Key takeaways from this paper include: (1) Arizona and Texas are border states with large and growing cities, as well as vast rural areas, but the outcomes of their K-12 education systems have been opposites; (2) While the Texas economy is racing full speed ahead, the state's K-12 education has stalled and is in decline, with some of the worst cases in rural areas; and (3) Texas lawmakers should use Arizona--which has the country's most robust education choice policies--as a model, very much including its rural areas.