Four-day school week (4DSW) schedules are growing rapidly across the U.S., with school districts citing perceived benefits to teacher recruitment and retention and student attendance as motivations for adopting the schedule. This study uses panel data from Colorado, one of the states with the highest prevalence of 4DSWs, to investigate the impacts…

This article presents a mixed method study utilizing teacher and student demographic and student attendance data from seven hundred and two public schools in central Texas along with follow-up qualitative data gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted with the top 1% of principals identified as having the most diverse group of faculty…

Student attendance problems have numerous causes and serious consequences for student learning outcomes. Chronic absence (CA) is a critical indicator of these problems. Chronic absence is especially relevant today given that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more students to be chronically absent. However, chronic absence is not a new feature for…

The UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership (CUEL) brief builds from recent CUEL analysis of schools that have proven most challenging to improve in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). In this research brief, CUEL researchers make the case for "high churn" schools to adopt an evidence-based stance as they seek to address the issue of chronic…

Many school districts in the United States are facing growing concerns regarding the shortage of qualified candidates for teaching positions. This problem has existed for some time, and its deleterious effects are exacerbated in school districts that have significant teacher turnover. School districts with higher teacher retention can mitigate…

In Nunavut, data for 2012-2014 shows a high school graduation rate of 34%. Little has been published about the causes of secondary students' absenteeism and the methods for attracting students back to school. This study explored the barriers and supports to education success from the perspectives of school staff, students, and parents. Interviews…

Whether improved local economic conditions lead to better student outcomes is theoretically ambiguous and will depend on how schools use additional revenues and how students and teachers respond to rising private sector wages. The Texas boom in shale oil and gas drilling, with its large and localized effects on wages and the tax base, provides a…

This study uses detailed administrative data on teachers and students from the state of North Carolina to revisit the empirical evidence on master's degrees, with attention to teachers at the middle and high school levels. It provides descriptive information on which types of teachers obtain master's degrees, for which subjects, at which…

Uniform use in public schools is rising, but we know little about how they affect students. Using a unique dataset from a large urban school district in the southwest United States, we assess how uniforms affect behavior, achievement and other outcomes. Each school in the district determines adoption independently, providing variation over schools…

While prior research has documented differences in the distribution of teacher characteristics across schools serving different student populations, few studies have examined how teacher sorting occurs within schools. Comparing teachers who teach in the same grade and school in a given year, the authors find less experienced, minority, and female…

This study examines factors affecting test scores in a sample of thirty-seven Texas public high schools from 2003 to 2007 since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. The schools were chosen based upon similar tax rates and district sizes. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test was implemented in 2003…

When Erik G. Brown launched his teaching career at the Cesar Chavez Academy in East Palo Alto, California, four years ago, he was not alone. Seventy-five percent of the teachers in the 400-student middle school were new to the district, and two-thirds of those were new to the field. The school had gone through six principals in six years, and its…