Research on teacher churn has produced conflicting conclusions as to its impact on students and teachers. We bring clarity to this work by combining and expanding on analytical approaches used in earlier research to determine how and when different types of churn (i.e., grade, school) impact teacher effectiveness and attendance. Using data from…

The recent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around their lowest performing schools, but it breaks somewhat from prior policies by granting states significant autonomy over how they identify and turn around these schools. This mixed-methods study, which draws on administrative, qualitative, and survey data,…

In recent years, some U.S. school districts have shifted away from direct management of schools, toward systems in which some or all schools operate under enhanced autonomy, accountability, and parental choice. Yet dynamics driving these changes are understudied, and there are few comparative studies of system-level governance shifts. To address…

Using unique data from California on teacher job vacancies, we investigate staffing challenges across the urbanicity spectrum, focusing on the extent to which the characteristics of rural school systems explain the differences in staffing challenges as measured by vacancy rates and emergency credentialed teachers, relative to other urbanicities.…

Background/Context: School leaders are central to state and district human-capital reforms (HCRs), yet they are rarely equipped with the skills to implement new evaluation, professional development, and personnel data systems. Although districts increasingly offer principals coaching and training, there has been limited empirical work on how these…

In many school districts the policies that regulate personnel are governed by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) negotiated between teachers' unions and school boards. While there is significant policy attention and, in some cases, legislative action that has affected the scope of these agreements, there is relatively little research that…

Districts are relying on school autonomy to help schools differentiate educational programming for students and improve low-performing schools, yet we know little about how schools use autonomy in practice. Drawing on school case study and principal survey data from the Los Angeles Unified School District, we find variation in perceived school…

The decision about how and when to open schools to in-person instruction has been a key question for policymakers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The instructional modality of schools has implications not only for the health and safety of students and staff, but also student learning and the degree to which parents can engage in job activities.…

In "Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31", the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice of enabling public-sector unions to collect "fair-share" or "agency" fees from employees who decline to join. Although federal law prohibits requiring workers to join a union as a…

There is empirical evidence of substantial heterogeneity in economic mobility across geographic areas and the efficacy of schools has been suggested as an explanatory factor. Using administrative microdata from seven states covering nearly 3 million students, we explore the potential role of schools in promoting economic mobility by estimating…

How did political factors and public health affect state and local education decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the continuation of in-person schooling? Using an original data set of state policies, we find that governors ordered school closures in spring 2020 but left decisions to districts in the fall, regardless of partisanship.…

Few studies examine employee responses to layoff-induced unemployment risk; none that we know of quantify the impact of job insecurity on individual employee productivity. Using data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Washington State during the Great Recession, we provide the first evidence about the impact of the layoff…

Few studies examine employee responses to layoff-induced unemployment risk; none that we know of quantify the impact of job "insecurity" on individual employee productivity. Using data from the Los Angeles Unified School District and Washington State during the Great Recession, we provide the first evidence about the impact of the layoff…

There is considerable speculation and some empirical evidence that teacher collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in urban school districts are more restrictive to district administrators than CBAs in other districts. We build on prior work by comparing urban with nonurban CBAs in three states--California, Michigan, and Washington--and, for a set…

Many schools and districts have considerable discretion when hiring teachers, yet little is known about how that discretion should be used. Using data from a new teacher screening system in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), we find that performance during screening, and especially performance on specific screening assessments, is…