Teacher evaluation is at the center of current education policy reform. Most evaluation systems rely at least in part on principals' assessments of teachers, and their discretionary judgments carry substantial weight. However, we know relatively little about what they value when determining evaluations and high stakes personnel decisions.…

Extensive teacher mobility can undermine policy efforts to develop a high-quality workforce. In response, policymakers have increasingly championed financial incentives to retain teachers. In 2006, the Denver Public Schools adopted an alternative teacher compensation reform, the Professional Compensation System for Teachers ("ProComp").…

Collective bargaining is common in American public education, but its consequences are poorly understood. We focus here on key contractual provisions--seniority-based transfer rights--that affect teacher assignments, and we show that these transfer rights operate to burden disadvantaged schools with higher percentages of inexperienced teachers. We…

In this article, we examine classroom observations from a 3-year large-scale randomized trial in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to investigate the extent to which a professional development initiative in inquiry science influenced teaching practices in in 4th and 5th grade classrooms in 73 schools. During the course of the study,…

For at least two decades, studies have demonstrated that the least experienced and credentialed teachers are concentrated in poor, minority, and low-performing schools. Some blame provisions in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) between teachers unions and school districts that favor senior teachers. Seniority preference rules, they say,…

Many English Language Learners (ELLs) migrate to the United States at older ages and administrators must choose a grade in which to place these new entrants as soon as they register for school. In this study, I estimate the effect of grade placement on the short-term academic performance of ELLs who enroll in the Miami-Dade County Public School…

The New York City Leadership Academy represents a unique experiment by a large urban school district to train and develop its own school leaders. Its 14-month Aspiring Principals Program (APP) selects and prepares aspiring principals to lead low-performing schools. This study provides the first systematic evaluation of achievement in APP-staffed…

This article uses a regression discontinuity approach to study the influence of New York City's school grading policy on student math and English language arts (ELA) achievement. We find evidence that students in schools receiving a failing grade realized positive effects in English in the 1st year of sanction, but we find no statistically…

We use data from one of the few states where information on curriculum adoptions is available--Indiana--to empirically evaluate differences in performance across three elementary-mathematics curricula. The three curricula that we evaluate were popular nationally during the time of our study, and two of the three remain popular today. We find large…

Analyzing mathematics and reading achievement outcomes from a district-level random assignment study fielded in over 500 schools within 59 school districts and seven states, the authors estimate the 1-year impacts of a data-driven reform initiative implemented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE). CDDRE…

Interdistrict open enrollment is the most widely used form of school choice in the United States. Through the theoretical lens of a utility maximization framework, this article analyzes the determinants of interdistrict open enrollment flows in Minnesota and Colorado. The authors' empirical analysis employs an original data set that details open…

A substantial amount of school district policy is set in the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) negotiated between teachers' unions and districts. Although previous studies have assumed that CBA provisions bargained by unions are a primary mechanism connecting union strength to outcomes for teachers and students, research has not yet…

This article discusses a dilemma that confronts reformers who seek to improve the education system yet operate from a position outside that system. On one hand, "external" reformers have found that the implementation of school-level programs is attenuated by a lack of coherence and support in schools' environment. Districts and states often enact…

Connecticut's interdistrict magnet schools offer a model of choice-based desegregation that appears to satisfy current legal constraints. This study presents evidence that interdistrict magnet schools have provided students from Connecticut's central cities access to less racially and economically isolated educational environments and estimates…

This study examines longitudinal student progress and achievement on the elementary, middle, and high school levels in relation to accountability policy incentives in a large urban district in Texas. Using quantitative analyses supplemented by qualitative interviews, the authors found that high-stakes testing policies that rewarded and punished…