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Full-Text Articles in Education

School Reopenings, Mobility, And Covid-19 Spread: Evidence From Texas, Charles J. Courtemanche, Anh Le, Aaron Yelowitz, Ron Zimmer May 2021

School Reopenings, Mobility, And Covid-19 Spread: Evidence From Texas, Charles J. Courtemanche, Anh Le, Aaron Yelowitz, Ron Zimmer

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID19 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, likely 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 …


Federal Student Loan Servicing Accountability And Incentives In Contracts, Rajeev Darolia, Andrew Sullivan Oct 2020

Federal Student Loan Servicing Accountability And Incentives In Contracts, Rajeev Darolia, Andrew Sullivan

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

Student loan servicers play a critical and underappreciated role in federal student loan programs. The federal government contracts out to servicers an array of many of the most critical functions related to student loan repayment, including account management, payment processing, and the provision of information about payment plans and solutions for distressed borrowers. In fact, most borrowers’ interactions with federal student loan repayment are almost exclusively with their servicer. We aim to improve upon the scarce research literature about federal student loan servicers by exploring the complicated set of measures that determine how servicers are compensated for servicing each debtor …


Educational Test Scores, Education Spending, And Productivity In Public Education: National Trends And Evidence Across States And Over Time, 1990-2015, John Garen, Rex Bray Jan 2018

Educational Test Scores, Education Spending, And Productivity In Public Education: National Trends And Evidence Across States And Over Time, 1990-2015, John Garen, Rex Bray

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

We examine national trends in educational funding, test score outcomes, and productivity as well as variations in funding and test scores over time and across states to assess how changes in educational spending are (or are not) related to changes in educational test score outcomes for states. National trends show small increases in test scores, large increases in educational funding (until the last recession), and a continued fall in educational productivity. The cross-state, over time analysis indicates a statistically significant but very small association of state funding to test scores; so small that large changes in funding have little effect …