This dissertation includes three essays in the field of economics of education. The first essay estimates the effect of top school management on student achievement in America. I use newly-collected data on the tenures of school district superintendents--the highest-ranking executive in U.S. school districts--to estimate the impact of individual…

The aim of this brief is to describe a key contributor to the persistent disparities found in student learning outcomes in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and to show how this knowledge can help identify specific sources of inequities in CPS, particularly for schools with predominantly Black student enrollments. The authors present a data-based…

The UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership (CUEL) brief is an analysis that examines schools that have historically struggled to improve within the context of the Chicago Public Schools SQRP Accountability System. In this research brief, CUEL researchers advance the term 'high churn" to describe a school type that has proven particularly…

In this report, we complement our latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel with in-depth interviews of leaders on the ground in five school systems. Our goal with these interviews was to learn from system leaders about the academic needs of children as they return to school, how districts and charter schools are…

This poll was conducted between September 20-25, 2024 among a sample of 1,034 Teachers. The interviews were conducted online. Results based on the full survey have a measure of precision of plus or minus 3.60 percentage points. This report highlights: (1) views on K-12 education; (2) teaching profession and experiences; (3) school choice policies;…

This study examined the extent to which student- and teacher-level characteristics in high school and college are associated empirically with high school students' college readiness and success in American Samoa. More specifically, multilevel ordinal logistic regressions were employed to understand the extent to which these characteristics predict…

In this report, we update our ongoing research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what system leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. The report is part of the American School District Panel, a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and…

In 2011, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) conducted a compliance review of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to examine the district's provision of resources and opportunities to schools with predominantly African American students as compared with schools with predominantly White students. The purpose of this study is to examine the…

The purpose of the study was two-fold: (a) to explore teacher perceptions about the four- versus five-day school week in terms of its impact on teacher/student attendance, and student achievement; and (b) to examine whether or not differences have been evidenced in teacher/student attendance, student achievement within a single school district…

Over the course of developing Consolidated State Plans, states have spent time evaluating their accountability systems. Many of the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, such as the inclusion of academic measures of students' proficiency on annual assessments, graduation rates, and English learners' progress toward…

Over the past decade, national initiatives have shifted States' attention to the challenge of turning around low-performing schools. The lack of consistent, dramatic improvements in the lowest-performing schools reflects the severity of the school turnaround challenge, but also suggests the need to continuously evaluate and refine turnaround…

This study investigates inter-school variations in several dimensions of opportunity to learn as well as examines the extent to which these measures significantly affect students' performance on grade 7 literacy and numeracy exams. After situating the study within the global discourse emphasizing the importance of providing access to quality…

What does research say about the four-day week as an alternative school schedule? More than 100 districts in at least 12 states currently use a four-day week alternative schedule. Most are located in rural areas, serve less than 1000 students, and made the move to a shorter school week with longer instructional days for financial reasons. Although…

This article addresses an analysis of current literature on employee and student absenteeism and seeks to provide key recommendations that may yield higher levels of attendance and student achievement in urban school districts. It hones on the idea that educational leaders must be cognizant of the factors relating to absenteeism and its cost to…

Econometric analysis of data from over 700 New York state school districts found that (1) policies governing use of teacher leave days clearly influence their use; (2) higher student absenteeism correlated with poorer test performance; and (3) teacher absence was not largely associated with student test performance. Changes in leave policy were…