Education in the United States has a foundational public purpose: to prepare students for effective citizenship. The idea that an educated and engaged citizenry is essential to the health of a democracy motivated the creation of government-run "common schools" in the early decades of the nation and remains an important value in modern…

When students look back on their most important teachers, the social aspects of their education are often what they recall. Learning to set goals, take risks and responsibility, or simply believe in oneself are often fodder for fond thanks--alongside mastering precalculus, becoming a critical reader, or remembering the capital of Turkmenistan. The…

Much has been written about the controversy surrounding performance-based school closures, but there has been no rigorous assessment of their impact on student achievement. Does the closure process harm students who are enrolled in a school while it is being phased out? Are future students better-off because a low-performing option has been…

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of family structure half a century ago, his concern was the increase in black families headed by women. Since then, the share of children raised in single-parent families in the United States has grown across racial and ethnic groups and with it evidence regarding the impact of family structure on…