This study applied Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis to disentangle friendship selection and influence regarding the academic achievement of Chinese adolescents in a 3-year longitudinal study of 880 middle school students (400 girls, Year 1 mean age = 13.33) and 525 high school students (284 girls, mean age = 16.45). Both…

Reclassification is a crucial outcome for English learner (EL) students' academic progress. Though ELs spend a large portion of their academic time with general education teachers, we know little about the role general education teachers play in developing ELs' English language proficiency. Drawing from a longitudinal administrative dataset from…

Positive perceptions of school climate correlate with many dimensions of academic well-being and student health. Unfortunately, some existing research finds more favorable perceptions in middle school for general education students (GENs) than for students with disabilities (SWDs). Given the importance of ninth grade to student success, it is…

Research on the dearth of teachers of color has focused on disparities in college enrollment, completion, and academic major. The present study examines whether disparities may begin earlier. Analyses of nationally representative longitudinal data show that students of color are 2 to 4 percentage points less likely to hold teaching career…

Police stops often perpetuate racial disparities in academic outcomes, yet few studies have examined factors that mitigate these negative consequences. Using two longitudinal studies (Study 1: n = 483, M-age = 12.88, 53% males; Study 2: n = 131, M-age = 15.11, 34% males), this article tests whether parental and school cultural socialization…

Latinx students now make up the largest share of charter school students nationally. In this article, I focus on Latinx charter school choosers in Houston, Texas, and ask what motivates Latinx parents to exit district schools. Drawing on interviews with 31 families, I find that perceptions of present and future risk motivate charter school choice.…

Educators in economically and racially segregated schools enact subgroup entitlement policies, such as Title III and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), as they negotiate the diverse and underserved needs throughout the student body. How do subgroup entitlement policies for English learners and students with disabilities shape…

Nationally, educators suspend Black students at greater rates than any other group. This disproportionality is fueled by stereotypes casting Black students as "troublemakers"--a label students too often internalize as part of their identities. Across two independent double-blind randomized field trials involving over 2,000 seventh…

We used multivariate generalizability theory to examine the reliability of hand-scoring and automated essay scoring (AES) and to identify how these scoring methods could be used in conjunction to optimize writing assessment. Students (n = 113) included subsamples of struggling writers and non-struggling writers in Grades 3-5 drawn from a larger…

This study examines the association between college-bound friends and college enrollment using restricted transcript data from the High School Longitudinal Study. Propensity score matching and school fixed effects models suggest that having close college-bound friends is positively associated with enrolling in college. However, Black and Latino…

The rapid expansion of school choice is restructuring public education in the United States. This study examines associations between charter and magnet school enrollment, White-Black and White-Hispanic segregation, and test score gaps at the district level from 2009 to 2015 in third to eighth grade using the Stanford Education Data Archive and…

Despite scholarly consensus on the positive influence of peers' parental education on students' academic achievement, less is known about whether marginalized students reap similar benefits as their nonmarginalized counterparts. Using data from the China Educational Panel Survey and a quasi-experimental design, we show that the impact of…

Since the early 2000s, educational evaluation research has primarily centered on teachers', rather than schools', contributions to students' academic outcomes due to concerns that estimates of the latter were smaller, less stable, and more prone to measurement error. We argue that this disparity should be reduced. Using administrative data from…

Nearly 15% of American students are chronically absent from school. To address absenteeism, many states have recently made chronic absence a core component of their school accountability plans. Scholars have theorized that a positive school climate can promote student attendance, but empirical support for this idea is lacking. In this study, the…

The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…