Heather Hill, Professor in Education, Harvard University, presented work in progress at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on October 20, 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.

To help candidates to learn more about the Annenberg Undergraduate Fellows for Education and Social Policy, we are holding an optional information session to allow potential applicants to learn more about our program. Here is the information:

Please RSVP to annenberg-undergrads@brown.edu if you plan to attend.

We will provide a brief overview of the program, and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you are unable to make it in person but would like to join via Zoom, you may do so via this link:
https://brown.zoom.us/j/6933585681

If you are unable to attend but have questions about the program, please email annenberg-undergrads@brown.edu.

Location note: Annenberg Institute office, 164 Angell Street, 2nd Floor, Room 275. (The building is at the corner of Angell and Thayer - it is the same building that houses the Brown bookstore on the first floor.)

This event took place on January 27, 2020.

The talk presented experimental evidence from India on augmenting state capacity for child development. Alejandro Ganimian, Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology and Economics, New York University, presented “Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on November 3, 2022. 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 assessed the longer-run effects of ethnic studies courses on student engagement and attainment through a research-practice partnership. Sade Bonilla, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania, presented “Assessing the Longer-run Effects of Ethnic Studies on Student Engagement and Attainment through a Research Practice Partnership” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on February 2, 2023. 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.

“Federalism and Education:  Cross National Lessons”

Federalism as a system of decentralized governance has played a central role in charting educational progress in many countries. With an evolving balance between centralization and decentralization, federalism is designed to promote accountability standards without tempering regional and local preferences. Federalism facilitates negotiations both vertically between the central authority and local entities as well as horizontally among diverse interests. Innovative educational practices are often validated by a few local entities prior to scaling up to the national level. Federalism encourages a certain degree of competition at the local and regional level. 

Given these critical issues in federalism and education, this presentation examines ongoing challenges and policy strategies in ten countries, namely Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. These case studies, recently published in an edited volume, aim to examine how countries with federal systems govern, finance, and assure quality in their educational systems spanning from early childhood to secondary school graduation.  Particular attention is given to functional division between governmental layers of the federal system as well as mechanisms of intergovernmental cooperation both vertically and horizontally. The presentation aims to draw out education policy lessons across the ten federal systems.

Kenneth Wong, Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor in Education Policy and Director of the Urban Education Policy Program, Brown University, presented “Federalism and Education: Cross National Lessons” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on May 9, 2019.

November 11 presentations

Matthew A. Kraft
More Than Teaching: The Long-Run Effects of Teachers’ Mentoring Relationships with Students
Wednesday, 11/11, 9:00am - 9:55am EST

November 12 presentations

Grace Falken
Shortages in the Substitute Teacher Labor Market
Thursday, 11/12, 8:00am - 8:55am EST

Josh Bleiberg
The Effect of School Sanctions Under ESEA
Thursday, 11/12, 11:00am - 11:55am EST

Katharine Meyer
Stacking the Deck for Employment Success: The Labor Market Returns to Stackable Credentials
Thursday, 11/12, 11:00am - 11:55am EST

Monica Lee
Did the Prior-Prior Year Fafsa Policy Shift Application and Enrollment Patterns?
Thursday, 11/12, 11:00am - 11:55am EST

Xiayang Ye
Recruiting the Very Best Future K-12 Teachers Using Free College: Experimental Evidence on Why It Fails
Thursday, 11/12, 12:00pm - 12:55pm EST

November 13 presentations

Josh Bleiberg
Examining the Effects of the Common Core on Students and Instruction
Friday, 11/13, 12:00pm - 12:55pm EST

Katharine Meyer
Timely Book Return
Friday, 11/13, 11:00am - 11:55am EST

Monica Lee
Does English Learner Status Change How Students Feel about School and Themselves? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
Friday, 11/13, 12:00pm - 12:55pm EST

Jessalyn James
Patterns of Skill Development Among Novice Teachers
Friday, 11/13,  2:00pm - 2:55pm EST

Melissa Lyon
Better Together: The Impact of Coaching As Professional Development for Teacher Teams
Friday 11/13, 1:00pm - 1:55pm EST

This event took place on November 11, 2020 as a virtual session.

The Annenberg Institute hosted the 2022 Quality High-Impact Tutoring: From Research to Practice conference. This event took place on May 9, 2022.

The talk explored heterogeneity within racial and ethnic groups using evidence from Massachusetts. John Papay, Associate Professor of Education and Economics, and Preeya Mbekeani, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, presented “Exploring Heterogeneity Within Racial/Ethnic Groups: Evidence from Massachusetts” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on April 12, 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.

Retirement Responses to Changes in Salaries and Pensions: Evidence from Public School Teachers

Many US workers receive a large portion of their lifetime compensation in the form of retirement pensions. How do changes in pensions vis a` vis salaries affect labor supply and retirement? This paper studies this question by examining the retirement responses to a reform that simultaneously changed salaries and pensions of public school teachers. In 2011, Wisconsin’s Act 10 ended collective bargaining over teachers’ pay schedules and increased employees’ contributions to the pension fund. The first provision triggering a decline in gross salaries and – subsequently – in future defined-benefits (DB) pensions for older teachers, and the second led to a decline in net salaries of all teachers. I use the staggered timing of implementation of the two provisions, together with a simple lifecycle model of consumption and leisure, to estimate the retirement elasticities to salaries and pensions and to calculate bounds of the income and substitution effects. Estimates indicate large substitution effects of a decline in net pay, and a more muted income effect of a decline in pensions. Furthermore, my findings indicate that teachers value one dollar of salaries more than one dollar of pensions. I use the estimated elasticities as summary statistics to evaluate the effect of an alternative budget-cutting policy that reduces pensions instead of net salaries. This alternative policy would lead to fewer, older, and lower-quality teachers retiring compared with Act 10.

Barbara Biasi, Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University, presented “Retirement Responses to Changes in Salaries and Pensions: Evidence from Public School Teachers” at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University on September 24, 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.

Nate Schwartz, Professor of Practice, and Biraj Bisht, Education Research Data Specialist, Annenberg Institute at Brown University, presented work in progress at the Institute on May 11, 2021 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.