Accountability systems are designed to introduce market pressures to increase efficiency in education. One potential channel by which this can occur is to match with effective teachers in the transfer market. I use a smooth maximum score estimator model, North Carolina data, and the state's bonus system to analyze how teachers and schools change…

Nationally, special education teacher turnover is a significant issue for school districts. The problem addressed in this study was the high special education teacher turnover rate in one local school district in North Carolina. Guided by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this basic qualitative study explored previous special education teachers'…

Despite common conceptions, evidence on whether No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has had adverse effects for low achieving students is mixed. We hypothesize that the incentive to shift attention away from the lowest achieving students increases with the rigor of state standards. Using panel data from students in North Carolina, we exploit two natural…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created and will continue to create uncertainty in all facets of everyday life, exacerbating current challenges -- and generating new ones -- for every sector of the economy, including postsecondary education. As the pandemic continues, postsecondary education faces increasing pressures as concerns about health and…

Community colleges, with their commitment to open access, admit millions of students each year who are unprepared for college-level work, even though they have earned a high-school diploma. For decades the schools had a built-in base of students attracted to their open doors and relative affordability. But enrollment at public two-year college has…

Purpose: Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs use typically increases in prevalence and frequency during middle and late adolescence. School health instruction often focusses on providing facts and rarely provides tools for addressing the psychosocial risk factors needed to prevent substance use. The purpose of this paper is to report about…

This report summarizes the state of competition in American K-12 education. It pays particular attention to the prevalence and market penetration of charter schools, private school vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships as market reforms. The effect of added institutional competition from charters, vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships on the…

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…

At the foundation of this research was the supposition that when principals implement positive leadership practices, they create an educational climate that encourages highly qualified teachers to continue to work in economically disadvantaged school districts by increasing teacher morale and perceived teacher efficacy. The purpose of the research…

Across the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast Region there is growing interest in strengthening the presence of online learning in all public schools to help equalize education opportunities for all students and prepare students for a digital future. For instance, the North Carolina General Assembly has required that the state transition to…