Search

We study the effect of paternity leave on early child development. We collect sur-vey data on 5,000 children under age six in Spain and exploit several extensions of paternity leave that took place between 2017 and 2021. We follow a differences-in-discontinuities research design, based on the date of birth of each child and using cohorts born in non-reform years as controls. We show that the extensions led to significant increases in the length of leave taken by fathers, without affecting that of mothers, thus increasing parental time at home in the first year after birth. Eligibility for four additional weeks of paternity leave led to a significant 12 percentage-point increase in the fraction of children with developmental delays. We provide evidence for two potential mechanisms. First, children exposed to longer paternity leave spend less time alone with their mother, and more time with their father, during their first year of life. Second, treated children use less formal childcare. Our results suggest that paternity leave replaces higher-quality modes of early care. We conclude that the effects of parental leave policies on children depend crucially on the quality of parental versus counterfactual modes of childcare. [Funding for this report was provided by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.]

We study the effect of educational attainment on family formation using regression discontinuity designs generated by centralized admissions processes to both secondary and tertiary education in Finland. Admission to further education at either margin does not increase the likelihood that men form families. In contrast, women admitted to further education are more likely to both live with a partner and have children. We then pre-register and test two hypotheses which could explain each set of results using survey data. These suggest that the positive association between men's education and family formation observed in the data is driven by selection. For women, our estimates are consistent with the idea that, as increased returns to social skills shift the burden of child development from schools to parents and particularly mothers, education can make women more attractive as potential partners. [Funding for this report was provided by The Strategic Research Council, the Research Council of Finland, and Palkansaajasäätiö.]

We investigate the impact of attending a free school in England -- that is, a new start-up school that enjoys considerable autonomy while remaining in the state sector. We analyse the effects of two secondary free schools with different teaching philosophies: one follows a 'no excuse' paradigm, while the other one adopts a 'classical liberal', knowledge-rich approach. We establish causal effects exploiting admission lotteries and a distance-based regression discontinuity design. Both schools have a strong positive impact on student test scores on average. However, we also find heterogeneous effects: the 'no excuse' school mostly benefits boys, while the 'classical liberal' school mainly benefits White British and non-poor students. Both schools similarly reduce student absences and school mobility. Peer quality, teacher characteristics, and inspectorate ratings cannot fully explain the schools' effectiveness. Instead, a quantitative text analysis of the schools' 'vision and ethos' statements shows that the 'no excuse' and 'classical liberal' philosophies adopted by the two free schools clearly set them apart from the counterfactual schools where rejected applicants enrol, and likely explain their heterogeneous effects.

The "Improving the Pipeline for Tennessee's Workforce: Academic Supply for Occupational Demand Report" is a joint report between the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD), Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD), and Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE). The Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Evidence and Impact (OEI) supports this project by linking K12 and postsecondary graduates to employment data in P20 Connect. This year's report maintains the Career Cluster structure, grouping occupations and aligned training programs in one place. Accompanying dashboards and data downloads are also available for readers who prefer to work with the data directly. Multiple state agencies facilitate this report's completion and there are many audiences for this report. Each year, efforts to refine and improve the report and associated outputs will continue to ensure the report is useful in education and workforce planning. This report: (1) Identifies in-demand occupations and aligned academic programs at the postsecondary and secondary levels and registered apprenticeships organized across 14 career clusters; (2) Includes in-demand occupations tables identifying the region(s) where the occupation is in-demand, entry level wages, indicators for jobs which are in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and those which support TNECD's target industries, and the typical training level required for employment; (3) Contains aligned academic programs tables with information about degree production and completers, matriculation into Tennessee's job market, and first-year wages for those identified in Tennessee employment data; and (4) Captures select agency initiatives promoting education and workforce alignment in K12, higher education, and the workforce.

The call to transform education must begin with the youngest children. The world is not on track in meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.2 committing countries to ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education by 2030. There is solid scientific evidence that early opportunities matter for child development outcomes. But inequalities start early and persist throughout life. Many children around the world, especially those living in low-income countries and facing disadvantage, do not have access and exposure to quality care and learning experiences early in life that prepare them for school success and foundational learning. Access to quality Early Childhood Care and Education matters for building a strong foundation and flourishing throughout life. This report is in response to a commitment in the Tashkent Declaration and Commitments to Action for Transforming Early Childhood Care and Education in which governments and the international community reaffirmed their commitment to the right to education, beginning with the youngest children. The report is the first in a biennial series dedicated to monitoring achievement of SDG Target 4.2. This edition explores how children learn and develop and how the key actors in children's early environments -- parents, families, educators and the community at large -- can be leveraged through public policies and social programmes to improve young children's learning and wellbeing. The right to education must begin with the right to a strong foundation.

Postsecondary education in the US--all formal learning experiences beyond high school, including two- and four-year degree programs and occupational and credential programs--is experiencing a momentous transformation in response to changing conditions and the demands of students, employers, and the economy. Yet public trust in higher education has reached a historic low, and for many in traditional degree programs, rising student debt undermines the return on investment many students expect from their college degree. New thinking and broader pathways are necessary to meet the demands of tomorrow's workforce and society. This Solutions Brief explores the current state of higher education and factors that are leading to this shift away from the traditional model. It considers the modern purpose of postsecondary education and details emerging practices that forge expanded design of and access to career pathways for all. The Brief also outlines recommended strategies to foster a postsecondary ecosystem to meet the needs of the future economy.

Formal mentoring has been an effective approach to mitigate challenges facing underserved youth and contributes to observable improvements in behavior, relationships, and emotional well-being. In recent years, virtual mentoring has emerged as a promising way to expand the provision of mentoring. By engaging virtually, mentorship programs can mitigate typical challenges of travel time and distance between mentor and mentee. Nonetheless, there are also challenges associated with virtual mentoring, including the potential for miscommunication and possible difficulties developing deep connections. In 2020, the U.S. Dream Academy began developing and implementing virtual and hybrid mentoring services to explore the benefits and address the challenges of virtual mentoring. As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused widespread disruption in schooling in the United States, the U.S. Dream Academy leveraged this unique opportunity to begin implementing virtual mentoring. This report describes how the U.S. Dream Academy sought to expand its mentoring program to include a virtual option. The authors summarize the development and implementation of the mentoring program and lessons learned from this experience with the goal of supporting program improvement. This report may also assist other mentoring programs that seek to adopt a similar mentoring model. [The research for this report was sponsored by U.S. Dream Academy.]

Formal mentoring has been an effective approach to mitigate challenges facing underserved youth and contributes to observable improvements in behavior, relationships, and emotional well-being (Rhodes, 2008). Mentored youth appear to gain improvements in peer and parent relationships and school performance, while also engaging in lower levels of substance and alcohol use relative to youth who are not mentored (Raposa et al., 2019). Studies have found mentoring effective in preventing psychosocial problems, such as delinquent behavior (DuBois and Karcher, 2013). Despite the evidence on the benefits of formal mentoring, an estimated 9 million young people are growing up in under-resourced environments without the support of formal mentors (Bruce and Bridgeland, 2014). In recent years, virtual mentoring has emerged as a promising way to expand the provision of mentoring (Andersen and Wellen, 2023). By engaging virtually, mentorship programs can mitigate the typical challenges of travel time and distance between mentor and mentee (Ensher, Heun, and Blanchard, 2003) and may even facilitate the development of rapport and trust (Ensher and Murphy, 1997; Miller and Griffiths, 2005). In 2020, the U.S. Dream Academy (hereafter referred to as "Dream"), a longtime innovator in developing out-of-school-time programs and formal mentoring for young people, expanded its mentoring program to include a virtual option in six Learning Centers across the country. RAND researchers collaborated with Dream to evaluate the development and implementation of the mentoring program and the supplemental services offered. This brief illustrates how flexible programming, including the use of in-person, hybrid, and virtual mentoring approaches, allowed for the adaptation of supports to meet the specific needs of youth and families in their communities.

In this report, the authors describe how implementation of restorative practices in educational settings and a juvenile diversion program run by the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) in San Diego County are working to stem the school-to-prison pipeline. The authors focus on how NCRC is serving as an intermediary organization for youth-focused programs, signs of success, opportunities to improve, and insights for other communities.

We provide the first causal evidence of the returns to maternal educational curricula on offspring's health at birth. Educational programs that aim to deliver more general knowledge may potentially improve women's earning potential and maternal prenatal investment by increasing the portability of skills across occupations and improving women's ability to make informed decisions about fertility options and health behavior. We study the impacts of a comprehensive educational reform that postponed students' curriculum choices and integrated more general education into the high school system on infant health outcomes. Using a dose-response difference-in-differences (DiD) model research design applied to linked population registries, we find that the reform led to a significant reduction in the incidence of very low birth weight (less than 1,500 grams) and very preterm birth (less than 33 gestation weeks). Overall, the reform's positive effects on infant health at birth seem to be driven by increased mothers' labor market opportunities and better family planning, rather than increased ability to avoid risky behaviours or increased women's earnings via different occupational choices or assortative mating. [This report received additional funding from Fundación Ramón Areces and the Spanish National Research Plan 2017-2020.]

We provide evidence from a randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness of a novel, 100-percent online math tutoring program, targeted at secondary school students from highly disadvantaged neighborhoods. The intensive, eight-week-long program was delivered by qualified math teachers in groups of two students during after-school hours. The intervention significantly increased standardized test scores (+0.26 SD) and end-of-year math grades (+0.48 SD), while reducing the probability of repeating the school year. The intervention also raised aspirations, as well as self-reported effort at school.

A very small number of young people enter youth custody between age 16 and 18 (about 4 in 1000 males), yet the consequences are severe. They spend an average of 7 months in youth custody and such incarceration has been related to negative outcomes in the longer term even if they can establish themselves in the labour market. In this paper, we evaluate whether there is a relationship between GCSE qualifications in English and maths and the probability of youth custody using administrative data in England. We are hindered in this because the majority of young people who end up in youth custody are not entered or fail their GCSEs in these subjects. Although regression results are consistent with educational achievement being a factor in why people end up in youth custody, they strongly suggest that both non-entry/low achievement and youth custody are correlated with severe vulnerabilities which are partially picked up by the explanatory variables available in administrative data (in particular indicators for special needs, disadvantage and being from some ethnic minority groups). Another interesting insight is that for many, problems only emerge (or at least become evident) in early or middle adolescence. [This paper forms part of a larger project funded by the Nuffield Foundation "Youth custody: Educational influences and labour market consequences."]

We study whether female students benefit from being taught by female professors, and whether such gender match effects differ by class size. We use administrative records of a German public university, covering all programs and courses between 2006 and 2018. We find that gender match effects on student performance are sizable in smaller classes, but do not exist in larger classes. This difference suggests that direct and frequent interactions between students and professors are important for the emergence of gender match effects. Instead, the mere fact that one's professor is female is not sufficient to increase performance of female students.

Black and brown people--and especially Black women--regularly face discrimination in schools and the workplace based on the texture and style of their hair. This is yet another form of racial discrimination and yet another way to control and police Black and brown people. Twenty-four states across the country have responded by passing the CROWN ("Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair") Act, which prohibits hair-based discrimination at work and school. The movement to pass the CROWN Act is gaining momentum in states across the country, as well as at the federal level. The Act is about strengthening worker protections and ensuring dignity and respect for cultural expression. This report discusses: (1) The effects of hair-based discrimination; (2) How the CROWN Act protects against hair-based discrimination; (3) Why is the CROWN Act needed?; (4) State of play: The CROWN Act has bipartisan support; and (5) How the CROWN Act is a critical tool to fight discrimination.

Though early childhood educators have a long history of emphasizing learning through play to foster the development of the whole child, including social-emotional competencies, the proliferation of formal social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula first seen in kindergarten to 12th grade has expanded to prekindergarten. This report presents initial implementation findings of the Positive Emotional Development and Learning Skills (PEDALS) program, an SEL program in prekindergarten classrooms in Western and Central New York and Southeast Michigan. PEDALS is a two-year program that combines the Second Step Early Learning SEL curriculum with comprehensive supports for teachers and site directors. Findings indicate that educators perceived the Second Step curriculum, PEDALS training, and PEDALS coaching support very favorably; strongly believed in supporting children's social-emotional development; and had a strong sense of self-efficacy for doing so. Observations indicated that educators were highly skilled in implementing Second Step lessons; however, teachers used strategies less consistently when children were having a difficult time or experiencing interpersonal conflict. Educators identified PEDALS resources for developing children's social-emotional competencies as the factors that provided the most implementation support; meanwhile, they identified some contextual factors, such as children's challenging behavior and lack of planning time, as the factors that most hindered implementation. Preliminary findings suggest that many preconditions for effective SEL instruction were met. This implementation study is a part of a larger evaluation of PEDALS that also will estimate the effect of the program on children's SEL and executive functioning skills. A second report will be published at the study's conclusion. [Additional funding from the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York.]

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, requires states to use information about the provider cost of child care to inform the setting of payment rates under the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) program. This requirement is consistent with the growing recognition that payment rates for early childhood care and education (ECCE) through CCDF are often too low to fully reimburse providers for their costs. Drawing from a 2020 cost-of-care study for Oklahoma that was conducted by RAND researchers, this updated report will meet the CCDF requirement for Oklahoma to have a current narrow cost analysis to inform subsidy rate setting. This report also provides an opportunity to understand how ECCE provider costs may have changed since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which took place just as the data collection for the 2020 study was completed. The authors adopted a two-pronged approach for this study: (1) collecting program and expenditure data from a sample of licensed providers, purposively selected to capture variation in key provider features that affect program structure and, therefore, per-child cost; and (2) developing a cost model (or calculator) with parameters informed by the information gathered from the sampled providers. The results from this updated report, with cost of care estimates for 2023, can continue to help policymakers in Oklahoma improve the access to and quality of ECCE. [This research was sponsored by the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness Foundation.]

We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given country and year. While autonomous schools do not affect overall achievement, effects are positive for high-socioeconomic status students and negative for immigrants. Impacts on segregation mirror these findings, with evidence of increased segregation by socioeconomic and immigrant status. Rather than creating "a rising tide that lifts all boats," autonomous schools increase inequality

We examine the role of universities in knowledge production and industrial change using historical evidence. Political shocks led to a profound pro-science shift in German universities around 1800. To study the consequences, we construct novel microdata. We find that invention and manufacturing developed similarly in cities closer to and farther from universities in the 1700s and shifted towards universities and accelerated in the early 1800s. The shift in manufacturing was strongest in new and high knowledge industries. After 1800, the adoption of mechanized technology and the number and share of firms winning international awards for innovation were higher near universities. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre's Growth Programme.]

This framework provides a set of recommendations for postsecondary institutions and employers to support Black learners and workers to build professional social capital. It expands on a related JFF market scan that maps the landscape of nonprofit and social enterprise-led social capital initiatives.

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic upended the US K-12 education system, exacerbated pre-existing challenges around student achievement, and created new obstacles to delivering high-quality learning for all students. Concerns for the US education system were increasing prior to the pandemic as academic achievement and school reforms struggled to keep pace with the evolving demands of the 21st century. School disruptions during the pandemic enervated the US education system, highlighted inequities, and intensified deficiencies leading to a new level of national education crisis which is becoming more and more evident in recent national assessments of achievement. This Solutions Brief examines the impact of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic on the US K-12 education system. It reviews the historic investment by Congress to restore schools and identifies promising practice examples that offer hope for student success. The Brief also proposes a series of recommendations that includes utilizing advances in technology and the extraordinary federal funding for K-12 education in states to enhance learning recovery and repair systemic issues to ensure all children can progress in educational attainment and are equipped to succeed as productive, engaged citizens.

"The Improving the Pipeline for Tennessee's Workforce: Academic Supply for Occupational Demand Report" is the second joint report between the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD), Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD), and Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE). This year's report maintains the Career Cluster structure, grouping occupations and aligned training programs in one place. Accompanying dashboards and data downloads are also available for readers who prefer to work with the data directly. This report includes a few new features, including a revised approach to measuring degree completers' employment and wages, as well as a simplification of report layout to improve readability and flow. Multiple state agencies facilitate this report's completion and there are many audiences for this report. Each year, efforts to refine and improve the report and associated outputs will continue to ensure the report is useful in education and workforce planning. This report: (1) Identifies in-demand occupations and aligned academic programs at the postsecondary and secondary levels as well as registered apprenticeships organized across 14 career clusters; (2) Includes in-demand occupations tables identifying the number of region(s) where the occupation is in-demand, entry level wages, indicators for jobs which are STEM fields and those which support TNECD's target industries, and the typical training level required for employment; (3) Contains aligned academic programs tables with information about degree production and completers, matriculation into Tennessee's job market, and first-year wages for those identified in Tennessee employment data. The calculation for employment outcomes changed in this year's report; (4) Spotlights select agency initiatives promoting education and workforce alignment in K12, higher education, and the workforce; and (5) Offers an overview of data, methods, and sources highlighting existing data use and areas for further exploration. [For the 2022 report, see ED624524.]

For more than a decade, academics and education policy experts have raised concerns about a widespread shortage of teachers in the United States. The first wave of warnings came in response to the drastic cuts in state and local spending on education following the Great Recession. In this report, the authors use data from a wide range of sources to document the size and scope of the teacher shortage. The data show that the teacher shortage is both widespread and acute across several dimensions, from subject matter specialties to school poverty status. The authors also review data that point to the two most important drivers of the shortage: (1) the declining compensation in the teaching profession relative to other occupations that employ college graduates; and (2) and the increasingly stressful work environment teachers face, a long-standing reality that has been greatly exacerbated by COVID-19. The key finding is that the current shortage is generally "not" the result of an insufficient number of potentially qualified teachers. The shortage is, instead, a shortfall in the number of qualified teachers "willing to work at current wages and under current working conditions." The combination of substandard teacher compensation and highly stressful working conditions has, in recent decades, made teaching a much less attractive profession than alternatives available to workers with college degrees.

Policy makers frequently use education as a welfare policy instrument. We examine one such case, where students from large and financially constrained families, were given the opportunity to be transferred to university departments in their hometown as part of the social policy of the Ministry of Education in Greece. Multiple law changes meant that there was a large and quasi-random variability in the number of transferred students over time, which was orthogonal to the quality of receiving students. We construct a novel dataset by linking students' characteristics and pre-university academic performance with their university academic record until graduation for the top economics department. We present consistent evidence showing how a social policy that is meant to help poor families and to alleviate inequalities has gone bad educationally, by lowering the academic performance of receiving students. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre's Education & Skills Programme. Financial support was provided by Drasi II (2019/2020) AUEB.]

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which were subsequently abolished until 2015. We exploit the unusual lack of grandfathering in these policies to show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among incumbent students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition. [Funding for this report was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).]