Washington could add as many as 110,000 new jobs by 2017 by closing skill gaps--the mismatch between the skills people have and those employers need, according to a March 2013 Washington Roundtable report. STEM professions face the most critical demand. Of the 25,000 jobs vacant for three months or more due to a shortage of qualified candidates,…

Many women are considered viable candidates to hold political office but choose not to run for various reasons. One of those reasons is that they do not see the characteristics in themselves that they determine necessary to be a successful politician. For the past five years, the Intern Fellowship Program at Simmons College has matched young women…

Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred renewed interest in teacher labor market policies. A substantial body of prior research documents that more highly qualified teachers tend to work in more advantaged schools, although this literature cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand factors…

This paper provides estimates for a comprehensive set of social benefits and costs associated with the federal Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program. The impact categories for which we provide empirical estimates include the value of the voucher to recipients; additional services and public benefits induced by voucher receipt; improvements in…

Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred interest in teacher labor markets. Research documents that better qualified teachers typically work in more advantaged schools but cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand. To isolate teacher preferences, we document which schools prospective…

In the first chapter, I measure the impact of student loan debt on young, college-educated workers' decisions regarding labor supply and enrollment in graduate school. I exploit variation in student loan debt driven by the formulas that determine Federal Student Aid in order to identify these effects. Instrumental variable estimates indicate…

Although "grow your own" principal preparation programs have become a popular method for recruiting and selecting administrator candidates for hard to fill positions in both urban and rural schools, "grow your own" principal candidates in rural contexts may be more vulnerable to the phenomenon of loss of self-efficacy. This…

Even with nearly 50 schools shutting down at the end of this month, Chicago education officials have been barreling ahead with plans to groom a large crop of high-performing principals that they say represents the most ambitious effort the city has undertaken to upgrade its school leadership ranks. The goal, said Chicago schools CEO Barbara…

This research investigated admission criteria of baccalaureate nursing students related to their success in a multi-state sample of peer universities in the United States. The researcher used mixed methods to collect data that were analyzed using descriptive and phenomenological approaches. The sample of the study was chairpersons from peer…

Many argue that childcare costs limit the labor supply of mothers, though existing evidence has been mixed. Using a child's eligibility for public kindergarten in a regression discontinuity instrumental variables framework, I estimate how use of a particular subsidy, public school, affects maternal labor supply. I find public school enrollment…

Employers need a pipeline of quality workers with different levels of skill and desired earnings. Almost half of U.S. jobs today can be defined as "middle skill" jobs, requiring less than a four-year degree but more than a high school diploma. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) occupational projections indicate that job categories for…

The labor force is the number of people ages 16 or older who are either working or looking for work. It does not include active-duty military personnel or the institutionalized population, such as prison inmates. Determining the size of the labor force is a way of determining how big the economy can get. The size of the labor force depends on two…

Criticisms of the field of educational leadership and management have consisted of the arguments that scholarship is generally lacking in theoretical and methodological rigour. While it is beyond the scope of this Review Essay to fully examine the terrain of critical approaches to leadership, what is important to note is what little headway much…

A key to Washington's economic prosperity over the past 20 years has been a thriving employment sector for workers who have high levels of education in fields related to biological, physical, computer and health sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Washington has met the demands of its knowledge-driven economy by producing and attracting one of…

With funding from the Joyce and Lumina foundations, Jobs for the Future (JFF) launched Credentials that Work to help postsecondary institutions, regions, and states align their occupational training programs to changing market demands. This initiative incorporates innovations in real-time labor market information in guiding institutions to better…