The talk examined how students' race shapes the instructional decisions teachers make. Cynthia Pollard, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, presented “The Effect of Student Race on Teachers’ Instructional Decisions” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on October 18, 2022. The talk was part of Annenberg’s Education Policy Workshop Series, an hour-long “works in progress” seminar centered on empirical research related to education and education policy. Speakers come from a variety of disciplinary traditions, and the series welcomes faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and research staff from across the university who are interested in empirical research in education.

Evaluating Education Governance: Does State Takeover Of School Districts Affect Student Achievement?

Local school boards have primary authority for running educational systems in the U.S. but little is known empirically about the merits of this arrangement. State takeovers of struggling districts represent a rare alternative form of educational governance and have become an increasingly common response to low performance. However, limited research explores whether this effectively improves student outcomes. We track all takeovers nationwide from the late 1980s, when the first takeovers occurred, through 2016 and describe takeover districts. While these districts are low performing, we find academic performance plays less of a role in predicting takeover for districts serving larger concentrations of African American students. We then use a new data source allowing for cross-state comparisons of student outcomes to estimate the effect of takeovers that occurred between 2011 and 2016. On average, takeovers had a moderate negative effect on English Language Arts and no effect on math achievement, though we observe considerable heterogeneity of effects across districts. Takeovers were least effective in districts with higher baseline achievement and least harmful in larger districts and majority Latinx communities. Leaders should be cautious about using takeover without considering local context and a better understanding of why some takeovers are more effective than others.

About Beth Schueler

Beth Schueler is an Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. She studies education policy, politics, and inequality with a focus on efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools and districts. She uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to learn which policies are most effective at improving educational organizations and what makes these policies more or less politically viable.

Beth Schueler, Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy, University of Virginia, presented “Evaluating education governance: Does state takeover of school districts affect student achievement?” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on April 21, 2021 in a virtual session. The talk was part of the Annenberg Seminars on Educational Policy, a series that brings education researchers from institutions across the country to Brown to present and discuss their work.

The talk presented research on how secondary-school student absences affect achievement in both the short and long run. Jing Liu, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, presented “The Short- and Long-Run Impact of Secondary Student Absences” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on October 15, 2019. The talk was part of Annenberg’s Education Policy Workshop Series, an hour-long “works in progress” seminar centered on empirical research related to education and education policy. Speakers come from a variety of disciplinary traditions, and the series welcomes faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and research staff from across the university who are interested in empirical research in education.

The talk examined the effects of school sanctions imposed under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Josh Bleiberg, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Annenberg Institute at Brown University, presented “The Effect of School Sanctions Under ESEA” at the Institute on December 1, 2020 in a virtual session. The talk was part of Annenberg’s Education Policy Workshop Series, an hour-long “works in progress” seminar centered on empirical research related to education and education policy. Speakers come from a variety of disciplinary traditions, and the series welcomes faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and research staff from across the university who are interested in empirical research in education.

The Undergraduate Research Fellows for Social Science and Public Policy is an eight-week, paid summer internship that aims to prepare current Brown undergraduates to engage in rigorous empirical research in the social sciences in support of efforts to improve our understanding of public health, the education system, inequality, and population well-being. The program is supported jointly by the Annenberg Institute, the Brown University Economics Department, and the Population Studies and Training Center.  

The program is structured in two phases. The first phase is a data science “boot camp” that introduces fellows to skills in statistics, data management and data analysis. The second phase will consist of a mentored research experience that pairs fellows with real world research projects to gain firsthand experience with the process of conducting empirical, social science research.  Our approach emphasizes mentorship and peer learning, and allows Fellows to develop relationships with faculty members that may continue during their time at Brown. Throughout the program, fellows will also participate in workshops and panels that will introduce them to cutting edge topics in social science, help them learn additional research skills like survey design, and highlight various career opportunities in empirical social science both inside and outside of academia. 

Join this info session to hear from associated faculty and student alums. Pizza and beverages will be provided.

An information session for Brown undergraduates interested in the Undergraduate Research Fellows for Social Science and Public Policy, an eight-week paid summer research internship. This event took place on December 10, 2024.

More School Funding, Less Crime?

Communities across the country face increasing calls to allocate the marginal crime prevention dollar away from law enforcement and toward social programs, such as public education. This paper examines the effect of primary school funding on adult crime. Specifically, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in school funding driven by Michigan’s 1994 school finance reform, Proposal A, as well as a novel source of administrative records linking the universe of Michigan public school students with adult arrests. We find that students exposed to ten percent more primary school spending experienced a sixteen percent reduction in the probability of being arrested as an adult. This effect was concentrated entirely in low-income school districts, and driven by reductions in all major crime types, such as violent, property, and drug crimes. Exploring mechanisms, we find that treated students had higher elementary-school (though not middle-school) test scores and middle school attendance rates, were less likely to repeat a middle school grade and be placed in a juvenile detention center, and were more likely to graduate high school. However, improvements in all of these intermediate outcomes can explain less than a third of the overall crime effect, suggesting that previous knowledge of how additional school funding impacts test scores and educational attainment does not predict its effect on adult crime. Preliminary calculations suggest that increasing school spending can be a cost-effective crime reduction strategy.

Joshua Hyman, Assistant Professor of Economics, Amherst College, presented “More School Funding, Less Crime?” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on October 13, 2021. The talk was part of the Annenberg Seminars on Educational Policy, a series that brings education researchers from institutions across the country to Brown to present and discuss their work.