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Articles 1 - 30 of 43
Full-Text Articles in Education
The Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Kps Student Enrollment And Nwea Test Scores, Randall W. Eberts
The Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Kps Student Enrollment And Nwea Test Scores, Randall W. Eberts
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This report focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kalamazoo Public Schools District in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which closed its doors to students from mid-March 2020 to June 2021. During this time, instruction transitioned from face-to-face to virtual, with students having three options for virtual instruction. In addition to individual KPS student data, the study looks at the NWEA national sample as presented in several publications and technical appendices. The study addresses three basic questions, as well as examining students’ race/ethnicity and poverty status, summer learning loss to determine the change in achievement gains, and attendance rates as an example of …
The Decline Of Routine Tasks, Education Investments, And Intergenerational Mobility, Patrick Bennett, Kai Liu, Kjell Salvanes
The Decline Of Routine Tasks, Education Investments, And Intergenerational Mobility, Patrick Bennett, Kai Liu, Kjell Salvanes
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
How does a large structural change to the labor market affect education investments made at young ages? Exploiting differential exposure to the national decline in routine-task intensity across local labor markets, we show that the secular decline in routine tasks causes major shifts in education investments of high school students, where they invest less in vocational-trades education and increasingly invest in college education. Our results highlight that labor demand changes impact inequality in the next generation. Low-ability and low-SES students are most responsive to task-biased demand changes and, as a result, intergenerational mobility in college education increases.
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- And Long-Term Effects Of Targeted Academic Coaching, Serena Canaan, Stefanie Fischer, Pierre Mouganie, Geoffrey C. Schnorr
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- And Long-Term Effects Of Targeted Academic Coaching, Serena Canaan, Stefanie Fischer, Pierre Mouganie, Geoffrey C. Schnorr
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
To boost college graduation rates, policymakers often advocate for academic supports such as coaching or mentoring. Proactive and intensive coaching interventions are effective, but are costly and difficult to scale. We evaluate a relatively lower-cost group coaching program targeted at first-year college students placed on academic probation. Participants attend a workshop where coaches aim to normalize failure and improve self-confidence. Coaches also facilitate a process whereby participants reflect on their academic difficulties, devise solutions to address their challenges, and create an action plan. Participants then hold a one-time follow-up meeting with their coach or visit a campus resource. Using a …
The Great Migration And Educational Opportunity, Cavit Baran, Eric Chyn, Bryan A. Stuart
The Great Migration And Educational Opportunity, Cavit Baran, Eric Chyn, Bryan A. Stuart
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the impact of the First Great Migration on children. We use the complete-count 1940 Census to estimate selection-corrected place effects on education for children of Black migrants. On average, Black children gained 0.8 years of schooling (12 percent) by moving from the South to the North. Many counties that had the strongest positive impacts on children during the 1940s offer relatively poor opportunities for Black youth today. Opportunities for Black children were greater in places with more schooling investment, stronger labor market opportunities for Black adults, more social capital, and less crime.
Promise Program Design For Equity Outcomes: A Landscape Survey, Michelle Miller-Adams, Isabel Mcmullen
Promise Program Design For Equity Outcomes: A Landscape Survey, Michelle Miller-Adams, Isabel Mcmullen
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using the W.E. Upjohn Institute’s Promise Programs Database—a searchable data set covering about 200 place-based scholarship programs—this paper explores how the design of Promise programs can shape their equity impacts. The authors first examine the landscape of place-based programs to understand the impact of program design on equity outcomes. They then use the statistical method of polychoric correlation to combine design features related to the equity potential of community-based Promise programs and develop an index expressing this concept. They conclude with two vignettes of recently announced Promise programs with different design features and implementation strategies to highlight the varied paths …
Pre-K In The Public Schools: Evidence From Within U.S. States, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Pre-K In The Public Schools: Evidence From Within U.S. States, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In the past 15 years, four-year-olds’ enrollment in state-funded pre-kindergarten in the United States has doubled, and advocates have pushed for further expansion. Although research has shown that pre-K programs can have important benefits, most existing studies have focused on small or state-specific programs that may not generalize to other areas or contexts. The uniqueness of our paper is its scope: our data cover the last two decades, span nearly all states, and allow for intrastate variation. For the average state program, we find no evidence of effects on the average student’s test scores, assignment to special education, or grade …
Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Degrees Of Poverty: The Relationship Between Family Income Background And The Returns To Education, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income backgrounds. For individuals whose family income in high school was above 1.85 times the poverty level, we estimate that career earnings for bachelor’s graduates are 136 percent higher than earnings for those whose education stopped at high school. However, for individuals whose family income during high school was below 1.85 times the poverty level, the career …
The Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On College Enrollment, Persistence, And Completion, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
The Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On College Enrollment, Persistence, And Completion, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effects on postsecondary education outcomes of the Kalamazoo Promise, a generous, place-based college scholarship. We identify Promise effects using difference-in-differences, comparing eligible to ineligible graduates before and after the Promise’s initiation. According to our estimates, the Promise significantly increases college enrollment, college credits attempted, and credential attainment. Stronger effects occur for women.
Are Teacher Pensions "Hazardous" For Schools?, Patten Priestley Mahler
Are Teacher Pensions "Hazardous" For Schools?, Patten Priestley Mahler
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
I use a detailed panel of data and a unique modeling specification to explore how public schoolteachers respond to the incentives embedded in North Carolina’s retirement system. Like most public-sector retirement plans, North Carolina’s teacher pension implicitly encourages teachers to continue working until they are eligible for their pension benefits, and then leave soon afterward. I find that teachers with higher levels of quality, as measured by a teacher’s value-added to her students’ achievement test scores, are more responsive to the “pull” of teacher pensions. Younger teachers, those with higher salaries, and nonwhite teachers are also more likely to stay …
Propelled: The Effects Of Grants On Graduation, Earnings, And Welfare, Jeffrey T. Denning, Benjamin M. Marx, Lesley J. Turner
Propelled: The Effects Of Grants On Graduation, Earnings, And Welfare, Jeffrey T. Denning, Benjamin M. Marx, Lesley J. Turner
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effect of grant aid on poor college students’ attainment and earnings using student-level administrative data from four-year public colleges in Texas. To identify these effects, we exploit a discontinuity in grant generosity as a function of family income. Eligibility for the maximum Pell Grant significantly increases degree receipt and earnings beginning four years after entry. Within 10 years, imputed taxes on eligible students’ earnings gains fully recoup total government expenditures generated by initial eligibility. To clarify how these estimates relate to social welfare, we develop a general theoretical model and derive sufficient statistics for the welfare implications …
A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of The Tulsa Universal Pre-K Program, Timothy J. Bartik, Jonathan A. Belford, William T. Gormley, Sara Anderson
A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of The Tulsa Universal Pre-K Program, Timothy J. Bartik, Jonathan A. Belford, William T. Gormley, Sara Anderson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In this paper, benefits and costs are estimated for a universal pre-K program, provided by Tulsa Public Schools. Benefits are derived from estimated effects of Tulsa pre-K on retention by grade 9. Retention effects are projected to dollar benefits from future earnings increases and crime reductions. Based on these estimates, Tulsa pre-K has benefits exceeding costs by about 2-to-1. This benefit cost ratio is far less than the benefit-cost ratios (ranging from 8-to-1 to 16-to-1) for more targeted and intensive pre-K programs from the 1970s and 80s, such as Perry Preschool and the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) program. Comparing benefit-cost …
Born Under A Lucky Star: Financial Aid, College Completion, Labor Supply, And Credit Constraints, Jeffrey T. Denning
Born Under A Lucky Star: Financial Aid, College Completion, Labor Supply, And Credit Constraints, Jeffrey T. Denning
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Higher education has experienced many changes since the 1970s, including an increase in the price of college, an increase in student employment during college, a decrease in college completion rates, and an increase in time to degree. This paper ties these trends together by causally linking changes in financial aid with time to degree and student employment during college. I find that additional financial aid accelerates graduation for university seniors because they increase credits attempted and reduce earnings while in college. In reaching this finding, I use administrative education and earnings data to examine a discrete change in the amount …
The Merits Of Universal Scholarships: Benefit-Cost Evidence From The Kalamazoo Promise, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
The Merits Of Universal Scholarships: Benefit-Cost Evidence From The Kalamazoo Promise, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
As higher education costs rise, many communities have begun to adopt their own financial aid strategy: place-based scholarships for students graduating from the local school district. In this paper, we examine the benefits and costs of the Kalamazoo Promise, one of the more universal and more generous place-based scholarships. Building upon estimates of the program's heterogeneous effects on degree attainment, scholarship cost data, and projections of future earnings by education, we examine the Promise’s benefit-cost ratios for students differentiated by income, race, and gender. Although the average rate of return of the program is 11 percent, rates of return vary …
Late For The Meeting: Gender, Peer Advising, And College Success, Jimmy R. Ellis, Seth Gershenson
Late For The Meeting: Gender, Peer Advising, And College Success, Jimmy R. Ellis, Seth Gershenson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Many male and first-generation college-goers struggle in their first year of postsecondary education. Mentoring programs have been touted as a potential solution to help such students acclimate to college life, yet causal evidence on the impact of such programs, and the factors that influence participation in them, is scant. This study leverages a natural experiment in which peer advisors (PAs) were quasi-randomly assigned to first-year university students to show that 1) male students were significantly more likely to voluntarily meet with their assigned PA when the PA was also male and 2) these compliers were significantly more likely to persist …
Investing In Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, And Student Achievement (Revised And Edited), Paco Martorell, Kevin Stange, Isaac Mcfarlin Jr.
Investing In Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, And Student Achievement (Revised And Edited), Paco Martorell, Kevin Stange, Isaac Mcfarlin Jr.
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement. We study the achievement effects of nearly 1,400 capital campaigns initiated and financed by local school districts, comparing districts where school capital bonds were either narrowly approved or narrowly defeated by district voters. Overall, we find little evidence that school capital campaigns improve student achievement. Our event-study analyses focusing on students that attend targeted schools and therefore are exposed …
Income-Tested College Financial Aid And Labor Disincentives, Rajeev Darolia
Income-Tested College Financial Aid And Labor Disincentives, Rajeev Darolia
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Working has become commonplace among college students; however, this activity can have unexpected financial consequences. Federal formulas implicitly tax the amount of financial aid students are eligible to receive by as much as 50 cents for each marginal dollar of income. This tax creates an incentive for college students to reduce income, though abstruse formulas and the timing of financial aid receipt are likely to limit responses. Using data from a national sample of financially independent college students in the United States, I do not find that students bunch below earnings protection thresholds in a manner that would indicate attempts …
The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters
The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The stock of human capital in an area is important for regional economic growth and development. However, highly educated workers are often quite mobile, and there is a concern that public investments in college graduates may not benefit the state if the college graduates leave the state after finishing their education. This paper examines the relationship between the production of college graduates from a state and the stock of college graduates residing in the state using microdata from the decennial census and American Community Survey. The relationship is examined across states and across cohorts within states. The descriptive analysis suggests …
Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Place-based college scholarships, such as the Kalamazoo Promise, provide students who live in a particular place, and/or who attend a particular school district, with generous college scholarships. An important potential benefit from such “Promise programs” is their short-term effects on local economic development. Generous Promise scholarships provide an incentive for families to locate in a particular place, which may change migration patterns, and potentially boost local employment and housing prices. Using data from the American Community Survey, this paper estimates the average effects of eight relatively generous Promise programs on migration rates and housing prices in their local labor market. …
Who Believes In Me? The Effect Of Student-Teacher Demographic Match On Teacher Expectations, Seth Gershenson, Stephen B. Holt, Nicholas Papageorge
Who Believes In Me? The Effect Of Student-Teacher Demographic Match On Teacher Expectations, Seth Gershenson, Stephen B. Holt, Nicholas Papageorge
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Teachers are an important source of information for traditionally disadvantaged students. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations and whether they are systematically biased. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers’ expectations for students’ educational attainment. Using a student fixed effects strategy that exploits expectations data from two teachers per student, we find that non-black teachers of black students have significantly lower expectations than do black teachers. These effects are larger for black male students and math teachers. Our findings add to a growing literature on the role of limited information in perpetuating educational attainment …
Intergovernmental (Dis)Incentives, Free-Riding, Teacher Salaries And Teacher Pensions, Maria D. Fitzpatrick
Intergovernmental (Dis)Incentives, Free-Riding, Teacher Salaries And Teacher Pensions, Maria D. Fitzpatrick
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In this paper, I document evidence that intergovernmental incentives inherent in public sector defined benefit pension systems distort the amount and timing of income for public school teachers. This intergovernmental incentive stems from the fact that, in many states, local school districts are responsible for setting the compensation that determines the size of pensions, but are not required to make contributions to cover the resulting pension fund liabilities. I use the introduction of a policy that required experience-rating on compensation increases above a certain limit in a differences-in-differences framework to identify whether districts are willing to pay the full costs …
Performance Standards And Employee Effort: Evidence From Teacher Absences, Seth Gershenson
Performance Standards And Employee Effort: Evidence From Teacher Absences, Seth Gershenson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) increased accountability pressure in U.S. public schools by threatening to impose sanctions on Title 1 schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in consecutive years. Difference-in-difference estimates of the effect of failing AYP in the first year of NCLB on teacher effort in the subsequent year suggest that, on average, teacher absences in North Carolina fell by about 10 percent, and the probability of being absent 15 or more times fell by about 30 percent. Reductions in teacher absences were driven by within-teacher increases in effort and were larger among …
The Effects Of Doubling Instruction Efforts On Middle School Students' Achievement: Evidence From A Multiyear Regression-Discontinuity Design, Timothy J. Bartik, Marta Lachowska
The Effects Of Doubling Instruction Efforts On Middle School Students' Achievement: Evidence From A Multiyear Regression-Discontinuity Design, Timothy J. Bartik, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We use a regression-discontinuity design to study the effects of double blocking sixth-grade students in reading and mathematics on their achievement across three years of middle school. To identify the effect of the intervention, we use sharp cutoffs in the test scores used to assign students to double blocking. We find large, positive, and persistent effects of double blocking in reading, but, unlike previous research, we find no statistically significant effects of double blocking in mathematics either in the short run or medium run.
The Distribution Of College Graduate Debt, 1990 To 2008: A Decomposition Approach, Brad J. Hershbein, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
The Distribution Of College Graduate Debt, 1990 To 2008: A Decomposition Approach, Brad J. Hershbein, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Despite tremendous recent interest in the subject of student debt by both researchers and policy makers, little is known about how the distribution of college graduate debt has been evolving and what factors can explain it. We use National Postsecondary Student Aid Study data from 1990 through 2008 to document the evolution of college graduate debt profiles. We find that growth in debt over the 1990s was rapid and occurred throughout the distribution; during the 2000s, in contrast, debt grew appreciably only for the top quartile. Employing several decomposition techniques, we exploit the richness of the data to explain these …
A Second Look At Enrollment Changes After The Kalamazoo Promise, Brad J. Hershbein
A Second Look At Enrollment Changes After The Kalamazoo Promise, Brad J. Hershbein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
While previous research has documented how the Kalamazoo Promise, the most prominent and generous place-based college scholarship program, increased enrollment in Kalamazoo Public Schools, this paper qualifies and quantifies the characteristics of students who were induced to enter—or stay—in the district. In particular, it analyzes the origins and destinations, socioeconomic composition, and school-level sorting behavior associated with student flows around the time of the Promise announcement. These dimensions are more subtle than changes in the volume of students or measures of their individual success, but they are equally important to understand for communities exploring the feasibility of place-based scholarships as …
Effects Of The Pre-K Program Of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s On Kindergarten Entry Test Scores: Estimates Based On Data From The Fall Of 2011 And The Fall Of 2012, Timothy J. Bartik
Effects Of The Pre-K Program Of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s On Kindergarten Entry Test Scores: Estimates Based On Data From The Fall Of 2011 And The Fall Of 2012, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper uses a regression discontinuity model to examine the effects on kindergarten entrance assessments of the Kalamazoo County Ready 4s (KC Ready 4s) program, a half-day pre-K program for four-year-olds in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. The results are based on test scores and other characteristics of up to 220 children participating in KC Ready 4s, with data coming from both 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 participants in the program. The estimates find consistently statistically significant effects of this pre-K program on improving entering kindergartners’ math test scores. Some estimates also suggest marginally statistically significant effects of KC Ready 4s on vocabulary test …
The Short-Term Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On Student Outcomes, Timothy J. Bartik, Marta Lachowska
The Short-Term Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On Student Outcomes, Timothy J. Bartik, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In order to study whether college scholarships can be an effective tool in raising students’ performance in secondary school, we use one aspect of the Kalamazoo Promise that resembles a quasi-experiment. The surprise announcement of the scholarship created a large change in expected college tuition costs that varied across different groups of students based on past enrollment decisions. This variation is arguably exogenous to unobserved student characteristics. We estimate the effects of this change by a set of “difference-in-differences” regressions where we compare the change in student outcomes in secondary school across time for different student “length of enrollment” groups. …
Earnings Benefits Of Tulsa's Pre-K Program For Different Income Groups, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Shirley Adelstein
Earnings Benefits Of Tulsa's Pre-K Program For Different Income Groups, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Shirley Adelstein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates future adult earnings effects associated with a universal pre-K program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These informed projections help to compensate for the lack of long-term data on universal pre-K programs, while using metrics that relate test scores to valued social benefits. Combining test-score data from the fall of 2006 and recent findings by Chetty et al. (forthcoming) on the relationship between kindergarten test scores and adult earnings, we generate plausible projections of adult earnings effects and a partial cost-benefit analysis of the Tulsa pre-K program. We find substantial projected earnings benefits for program participants who differ by income …
Do Bans On Affirmative Action Hurt Minority Students? Evidence From The Texas Top 10% Plan, Kalena E. Cortes
Do Bans On Affirmative Action Hurt Minority Students? Evidence From The Texas Top 10% Plan, Kalena E. Cortes
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In light of the recent bans on affirmative action in higher education, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of alternative admissions policies on the persistence and college completion of minority students. I find that the change from affirmative action to the Top 10% Plan in Texas decreased both retention and graduation rates of lower-ranked minority students. Results show that both fall-to-fall freshmen retention and six-year college graduation of seconddecile minority students decreased, respectively, by 2.4 and 3.3 percentage points. The effect of the change in admissions policy was slightly larger for minority students in the third and lower …
Distributional Effects Of Early Childhood Programs And Business Incentives And Their Implications For Policy, Timothy J. Bartik
Distributional Effects Of Early Childhood Programs And Business Incentives And Their Implications For Policy, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This is a draft of a chapter of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa [subsequently published as Investing in Kids, 2011]. This book analyzes early childhood programs effects on regional economic development. This chapter considers the effects of early childhood programs and business incentives on the income distribution. A key issue is whether early childhood programs should be targeted on the poor, or made universally available for free. Relevant considerations in addressing this issue include how benefits of early childhood programs benefit with family income, and the political feasibility of targeted versus …
How Policymakers Should Deal With The Delayed Benefits Of Early Childhood Programs, Timothy J. Bartik
How Policymakers Should Deal With The Delayed Benefits Of Early Childhood Programs, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This is a draft of a chapter of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa [subsequently published as Investing in Kids, 2011]. This chapter considers a problem with early childhood programs: their effects on earnings are mostly long-delayed. The delay occurs because most earnings effects are on former child participants. The chapter considers appropriate discounting of benefits and how the upfront costs of early childhood programs can be delayed or reduced. It also addresses how the long-run benefits of early childhood programs can be moved up or increased.