We use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to describe district-level trends in average academic achievement between 2009 and 2019. Though on average school districts' test scores improved very modestly (by about 0.001 SDs/year), there is significant variation among districts. Moreover, we find that average test score disparities between…

Largely overlooked in the empirical literature on gentrification is the potential impact that school closures play in this process. This study examines whether the weakening of the neighborhood-school connection brought about by school closures affects the likelihood that nearby neighborhoods experience gentrification. Integrating longitudinal…

Growing evidence illustrates the size and character of public-school enrollment declines during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, far less is known about where unenrolled students went. Using unique cross-sector enrollment and mobility data from the state of Hawaii, this study provides evidence that demographic changes and movement to private…

The evidence that student learning declines sharply (or stagnates) during the summer has motivated a substantial interest in programs that provide intensive academic instruction during the summer. However, the existing literature suggests that such programs, which typically focus on just one or two subjects, have modest effects on students'…

This study examines the relationship between county-level estimates of implicit racial bias and black-white test score gaps in U.S. schools. Data from over 1 million respondents from across the United States who completed an online version of the Race Implicit Association Test (IAT) were combined with data from the Stanford Education Data Archive…

Although many programs remotely disseminate information to students about the college application process, there is little evidence as to how students experience these programs. This paper examines a large-scale remote counseling program in which college counselors initiated interactions with 15,000 high school seniors via text message to support…

Resource exposure is believed to be a key mechanism linking patterns of racial segregation and student outcomes during the Brown v. Board of Education era. Decades later, literature suggests that past progress on school desegregation may have stalled, raising concerns about resource equity and associated student outcomes. Are recent trends in…

I use standardized test scores from roughly 45 million students to describe the temporal structure of educational opportunity in over 11,000 school districts--almost every district in the US. For each school district, I construct two measures: the average academic performance of students in grade 3 and the within-cohort growth in test scores from…

We use data from multiple national surveys to describe trends in private elementary school enrollment by family income from 1968-2013. We note several important trends. First, the private school enrollment rate of middle-income families declined substantially over the last five decades, while that of high-income families remained quite stable.…

We estimate racial/ethnic achievement gaps in several hundred metropolitan areas and several thousand school districts in the United States using the results of roughly 200 million standardized math and reading tests administered to public school students from 2009-2013. We show that achievement gaps vary substantially, ranging from nearly 0 in…

A comparison of Chicago public school students' standardized test scores in 2009-2014 with those of public students across the U.S. reveals two striking patterns. First, Chicago students' scores improved dramatically more, on average, between third and eighth grade than those of the average student in the U.S. This is true for students of all…

In this study we examine trends in segregation by race and ethnicity in higher education from 1985 to 2013. We have three key findings. Over the past 30 years, students from different groups have attended college at increasingly similar rates; gaps are decreasing. But these decreases have been driven largely by large increases in minority student…

For schools and teachers to help students develop knowledge and skills, students need to show up to class. Yet absenteeism is high, especially in high schools. This study uses a rich dataset tracking class attendance by day for over 50,000 middle and high school students from an urban district in Academic Years 2007-'08 through 2012-'13. Our…

Student loans are a crucial aspect of financing a college education for millions of Americans, yet we have surprisingly little empirical evidence concerning individuals' unwillingness to borrow money for educational purposes. This study provides the first large-scale quantitative evidence of levels of loan aversion in the United States. Using…

In this paper, we show that the design and decentralized, school-based scoring of New York's high school exit exams--the Regents Examinations--led to the systematic manipulation of test sores just below important proficiency cutoffs. Our estimates suggest that teachers inflate approximately 40 percent of test scores near the proficiency cutoffs.…