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Like all educational institutions, community colleges rapidly shifted to online instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about what factors shaped individual college responses. This survey of distance education leaders (N = 45) in the California community colleges system aimed to: (a) characterize pre-COVID distance education resources, emergency responses to the pandemic, and readiness for online instruction in the fall, and (b) determine how pre-COVID distance education resources, emergency responses, and fall readiness relate to each other. We find wide variability in pre-COVID distance education resources. These preexisting resources were related to institutions' responses: Colleges with fewer pre-COVID resources focused on foundational efforts such as creating online student services, while institutions with greater pre-COVID resources offered somewhat broader responses to training students and faculty in skills to successfully transition online. Finally, although colleges improved their readiness for continued remote instruction in the fall term in terms of training faculty and providing students with technology to access classes, respondents estimated that roughly a third of students would still face barriers accessing remote classes.

A common rationale for offering online courses in K-12 schools is that they allow students to take courses not offered at their schools; however, there has been little research on how online courses are used to expand curricular options when operating at scale. We assess the extent to which students and schools use online courses for this purpose by analyzing statewide, student-course level data from high school students in Florida, which has the largest virtual sector in the nation. We introduce a "novel course" framework to address this question. We define a virtual course as "novel" if it is only available to a student virtually, not face-to-face through their own home high school. We find that 7% of high school students in 2013-14 enrolled in novel online courses. Novel courses were more commonly used by higher-achieving students, in rural schools, and in schools with relatively few Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate offerings.

This article uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face--both for initial attempts and for credit recovery. We find that while contemporaneous outcomes are positive for virtual students in both settings, downstream outcomes vary by attempt type. For first-time course takers, virtual course taking is associated with decreases in the likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and in graduation readiness (based on a proxy measure). For credit recovery students, virtual course taking is associated with an increased likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and being in line for graduation. Supplemental analyses suggest that selection on unobservables would have to be substantial to render these results null.

This article uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face--both for initial attempts and for credit recovery. We find that while contemporaneous outcomes are positive for virtual students in both settings, downstream outcomes vary by attempt type. For first-time course takers, virtual course taking is associated with decreases in the likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and in graduation readiness (based on a proxy measure). For credit recovery students, virtual course taking is associated with an increased likelihood of taking and passing follow-on courses and being in line for graduation. Supplemental analyses suggest that selection on unobservables would have to be substantial to render these results null. [This article was published in "AERA Open" (EJ1210509).]

Advocates for taxpayer-funded school-choice programs cite the potential of market competition to spur educational improvement and promote equity for low-income students. Meanwhile, school-choice critics lament the exodus of talent and resources from public schools, which they argue such programs necessarily cause. Most research on publicly funded voucher or scholarship programs, which use tax dollars to help low-income students attend private schools, examines their effects on voucher recipients. What the researchers wanted to know is how market pressure affects the performance of local public schools over the long run. As a private-school choice program grows, how does increased competition affect educational outcomes for public-school students who don't use scholarships or vouchers? The authors examine these questions based on a rich dataset from the state of Florida, where a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students has been operating since 2002. The authors constructed an index of competitive pressure to measure the degree of market competition each student's school faced prior to the program's start. The analysis then looks at whether non-scholarship students experience negative effects, either in terms of their scores on reading and math tests or their rates of absenteeism and suspensions, based on this pre-program market pressure and the expansion of the program over time. The authors find broad and growing benefits for students at local public schools as the school-choice program scales up. In particular, students who attend neighborhood schools with higher levels of market competition have lower rates of suspensions and absences and higher test scores in reading and math. And while the analysis reveals gains for virtually all students, the authors find that those most positively affected are students with the greatest barriers to school success, including those with low family incomes and less-educated mothers.

Using rich administrative data from North Carolina and school-course fixed effects models, this study explores whether the availability of same-race instructors in advanced-track sections of courses affects Black high school students' enrollment in, and performance in, advanced-track courses. The availability of at least one Black instructor at the advanced level is associated with a 2 percentage point increase in the uptake of advanced courses for Black students. However, conditional on enrollment in the advanced track, Black students are no more likely to pass advanced-track courses when taught by Black teachers. Positive effects on enrollment are driven by enrollment shifts for higher achieving students. Additional analyses showing benefits to non-Black students suggest that the main channels are not race-specific role model effects.

This paper uses fixed effects analyses to estimate differences in student performance under online versus face-to-face course delivery formats in the California Community College system. On average, students have poorer outcomes in online courses in terms of the likelihood of course completion, course completion with a passing grade, and receiving an A or B. These estimates are robust across estimation techniques, different groups of students, and different types of classes. Accounting for differences in instructor characteristics (including through the use of instructor fixed effects) dampens but does not fully explain the estimated relationships. Online course-taking also has implications for downstream outcomes, although these effects are smaller. Students are more likely to repeat courses taken online, but are less likely to take new courses in the same subject following courses taken online.

Using student-level administrative data from North Carolina, we explore whether exposure to same-race teachers affects the rate at which Black students receive exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, in-school suspensions, and expulsion. We find consistent evidence that exposure to same-race teachers is associated with reduced rates of exclusionary discipline for Black students. This relationship holds for elementary, middle, and high school grade ranges for male and female students, and for students who do and do not use free and reduced-price lunch. Although we find reductions in referrals for a number of different types of offenses, we find particularly consistent evidence that exposure to same-race teachers lowers office referrals for willful defiance across all grade levels, suggesting that teacher discretion plays a role in driving our results.

Does having a teacher of the same race make it more or less likely that students are subject to exclusionary school discipline? In this study, the authors analyze a unique set of student and teacher demographic and discipline data from North Carolina elementary schools to examine whether being matched to a same-race teacher affects the rate at which students receive detentions, are suspended, or are expelled. The data follow individual students over several years, enabling us to compare the disciplinary outcomes of students in years when they had a same-race teacher and in years when they did not. They find consistent evidence that North Carolina students are less likely to be removed from school as punishment when they and their teachers are the same race. This effect is driven almost entirely by black students, especially black boys, who are markedly less likely to be subjected to exclusionary discipline when taught by black teachers. There is little evidence of any benefit for white students of being matched with white teachers. Although these results are based on a single state, they should encourage efforts to promote greater diversity in the teaching workforce, which remains overwhelmingly white. In addition to offering more diverse role models at the front of the class, the study's findings suggest that employing more teachers of color could help minimize the chances that students of color, who trail their white peers in academic achievement, are also subjected to discipline that removes them from school.

Programs that enable students to attend private schools, including both vouchers and scholarships funded with tax credits, have become increasingly common in recent years. This study examines the impact of the nation's largest private school scholarship program on the performance of students who remain in the public schools. The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program (FTC) was signed into law in 2001 and opened to students from low-income families in the 2002-2003 school year. FTC provides corporations with tax credits for donations they make to scholarship funding organizations, the nonprofits that determine student eligibility for the program and issue scholarships. Corporations can receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits for up to 75 percent of their total state tax obligation each year. Although little noticed, tax credit scholarship programs now send many more low-income students to private schools than do traditional school voucher programs. More than 104,000 students nationwide attended private schools through tax credit programs in the 2008-2009 school year, while only 60,000 students used private school vouchers. Scholarship programs similar to Florida's now operate in several states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Indiana, and are being considered in Maryland and New Jersey. The Florida program is set to expand dramatically in the coming years, making evidence of its consequences all the more timely. This study takes advantage of the introduction of the FTC to provide new evidence on the effects of increased competition on student achievement in public schools. Before the program began in 2002, roughly 11 percent of students in Florida were enrolled in private schools. FTC targeted students from low-income families, only 5 percent of whom had been attending private schools. The authors examine whether students in schools that face a greater threat of losing students to private schools as a result of the introduction of tax-credit funded scholarships improve their test scores more than do students in schools that face less-pronounced threats. The authors find that they do, and that this improvement occurs before any students have actually used a scholarship to switch schools. In other words, it occurs from the threat of competition alone. (Contains 3 figures.)

This paper provides detailed evidence regarding the nature of selection into a school voucher system. We use micro-data on scholarship applications matched with state student-level records on test scores, schools attended, and demographic background characteristics to describe the attributes of students who choose to participate in Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program, a means-tested scholarship program that is the largest of its type in the United States. We find evidence that those who choose to participate in the program tend to be lower-performing students from poorly performing schools, and that students of different backgrounds tend to choose different types of private schools. Students participating in the program tend to select schools that have more white students and fewer minority students, regardless of student race. (Contains 7 figures and 9 tables.)

We use a life course framework to examine how the "new risk economy" has left middle-age professionals, managers and executives more vulnerable to job loss and unemployment despite high levels of human capital. Using in-depth qualitative data from 77 recently-unemployed white-collar workers, we examine perceptions of macro-economic forces and their implications for respondents' career-recovery plans and expectations for their own and their children's future career pathways. We find that most respondents attributed their job loss to factors associated with globalization and used coping strategies that involved adapting a "free-agent" mentality in the face of declining employer loyalty and deprofessionalization to manage perceptions of age bias. Respondents also make mastering the "new risk economy" a developmental goal for themselves and their children. (Contains 2 figures.)

The article focuses on private-school choice programs boost competition and benefit public-school students.

Like all educational institutions, community colleges rapidly shifted to online instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about what factors shaped individual college responses. This survey of distance education leaders (N = 45) in the California community colleges system aimed to: (a) characterize pre-COVID distance education resources, emergency responses to the pandemic, and readiness for online instruction in the fall, and (b) determine how pre-COVID distance education resources, emergency responses, and fall readiness relate to each other. We find wide variability in pre-COVID distance education resources. These preexisting resources were related to institutions' responses: Colleges with fewer pre-COVID resources focused on foundational efforts such as creating online student services, while institutions with greater pre-COVID resources offered somewhat broader responses to training students and faculty in skills to successfully transition online. Finally, although colleges improved their readiness for continued remote instruction in the fall term in terms of training faculty and providing students with technology to access classes, respondents estimated that roughly a third of students would still face barriers accessing remote classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of discrimination in education in the U.S. educational system. Topics include the high incidence rate of African American and Latino students being removed from school as punishment, the impact of policymakers in formulating policies that address the issue of bias treatment in school disciplining, and analyzes effect of teacher's race in student learning.

The article examines whether competition improves the performance of public schools in the U.S. The authors assess the effect of the largest private school scholarship program of the U.S. on students' performance who remain in the public schools. They argue that tax credit scholarship programs are able to send more low-income students to private schools compared to traditional school voucher programs in 2010.

The authors use a lifecourse framework to examine how the ‘‘new risk economy’’ has left middle-age professionals, managers, and executives more vulnerable to job loss and unemployment despite high levels of human capital. Using in-depth qualitative data from 77 recently-unemployed white-collar workers, the authors examine perceptions of macro-economic forces and their implications for respondents’ career-recovery plans and expectations for their own and their children’s future career pathways. The authors find that most respondents attributed their job loss to factors associated with globalization and used coping strategies that involved adapting a ‘‘free-agent’’ mentality in the face of declining employer loyalty and deprofessionalization to manage perceptions of age bias. Respondents also make mastering the ‘‘new risk economy’’ a developmental goal for themselves and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]