When the Chicago Public Schools' Office of Equity was established in September 2018, the goal was to take a systemic approach to building equity so that every student would have access to a high-quality education, regardless of race, ZIP code, ability, or country of origin. It was known that this goal could not be achieved through a series of…

Purpose: This study aimed to explore Kuwaiti public school principals' experiences in relation to autonomy and accountability after the implementation of the School Education Quality Improvement Project, which aimed to increase the autonomy and accountability of Kuwaiti public schools. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a qualitative…

States and districts are increasingly incorporating measures of achievement growth into their school accountability systems, but there is little research on how these changes affect the public's perceptions of school quality. We conduct a nationally representative online survey experiment to identify the effects of providing participants with…

The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is the nation's only source of dedicated federal funding to support the creation, expansion, and replication of public charter schools. Since FY2019, the CSP has been flat funded at $440 million. The CSP amounts to less than 1% of federal spending on K-12 education, however, it has a substantial impact on the…

The central argument of the article is that charter schools operate as a mechanism to circumvent the institutional constraints imposed on the public manager and thus restore the 'market' equilibrium in which all students have the same purchasing power. This changes the mechanisms of hiring and allocating teachers, making the system more equitable…

For the Expanded Learning Summer Program (ELSP), at a midsized public school system in the Northeast, providing high quality programming that engages student interest and fosters active learning by all children was a top priority. This case study, undertaken during the summer of 2017, provided insight into how the ELSP aligned with the relevant…

Among the many inequalities associated with racial segregation in schools, one notable disparity is the unequal access to experienced teachers. Schools with high proportions of Black or Latinx students have a disproportionate share of inexperienced teachers, both throughout the nation and in California specifically (Clotfelter, Ladd, &…

We estimate the equilibrium effects of a public-school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries. The program was randomized at the village-level, allowing us to estimate its causal impact on the market. Four years after the start of…

The problem of decentralization is one of the main problems in madrasa modernization and independent learning. This is due to the difficult coordination and expensive learning processes being experienced. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the impact of the educational policy implementations on madrasa, with the existence of regional…

This dissertation consists of three essays that use and develop econometric methods to causally investigate topics in education and development economics. In the first chapter, I develop an econometric framework to correctly and efficiently draw inference in models where estimated value-added (VA) is an explanatory variable (and models where it…

Preschool through third grade (P-3) alignment is regularly named as a key aspect of early childhood education and the transition to formal schooling. However, little is known about P-3 alignment in practice. Using data from 265 observations of math instruction in preschool, kindergarten, first-, and third-grade classrooms in New York City public…

There is considerable debate and evidence about how governments should regulate contractors and other firms, but little on how government should regulate schools. In the first phase of this study, we focus on the correlation between indices of state charter school policies and measures of charter quantity (market share) and three measures of…

Using rich panel data from Pakistan, we compute test score based measures of quality (School Value-Addeds or SVAs) for more than 800 schools across 112 villages and verify that they are valid and unbiased. With the SVA measures, we then document three striking features of the schooling environment. First, there is substantial within-village…

Early reading achievement is essential for all children's development and future success. However, U.S. schools continue to under prepare Black children in early literacy, as evidenced by disparate outcomes observed for this population of learners. The under preparation of Black students is problematic, given the strong negative correlation…

Education reform is a contested and complicated terrain where multiple stakeholders with competing visions seek to influence the direction of reform in alignment with their own interests. As a result of these competing visions, education policy is not value free or neutral and favors those who hold the political and economic power to maintain the…