Professional development (PD) for teachers is a ubiquitous feature of the American educational landscape. Yet we know little about how districts navigate the variation in teacher learning needs when designing and implementing district-wide PD programs. In this paper, we describe how the District of Columbia Public Schools implemented an ambitious…

Four-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching over 650 public school districts in 24 states as of 2019, but little is known about their implementation and there is no consensus on their effects on students. This study uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research…

Many districts and states have implemented incentives to recruit teachers to low-performing schools, and previous research has found evidence that these incentives are effective at attracting teachers. However, effects on the schools and students these teachers leave behind have not been examined. This study focuses on the spillover effects of…

Prior research suggests that families prefer schools with higher test scores, shorter distances from home, and certain student demographics. We build on this using data from New Orleans, a context well suited to identification of parent preferences because of its deferred acceptance algorithm and extensive, standardized, and broadly accessible…

In this article, we explore whether the evaluation instruments used in the teacher selection process in Peru are good predictors of teacher effectiveness. To this end, we estimate teacher value-added (TVA) measures for public primary school teachers and test their relationship with Peru's results of two rounds of the teacher evaluation (i.e., a…

Aggregated data meta-analyses indicate a correlation between instructional leadership and student achievement. However, it is unclear to what extent this relationship can be generalized across cultural contexts, as most primary studies stem from Anglophone regions. Drawing on international large-scale assessment data, this 3-level individual…

Philanthropic initiatives incorporating prescriptive practices have become prominent in K-12 education. This study provides evidence on the reach, character, and impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a controversial initiative designed to transform district leadership. A novel data set on Broad trainees linked to data on large districts…

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…

Principals are the second-largest school-based contributor to K-12 students' academic progress. However, there is little research evaluating whether efforts to develop principals' skills improve school effectiveness. We conducted randomized controlled trial studies of the impacts of a professional development program called the Executive…

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) exemplify a capacity-building investment to spur sustainable changes in America's persistently lowest-performing schools and stimulate the economy. This study examines both short- and longer-term effects of the first two cohorts of SIG schools from four locations across the country. Dynamic…

Research concerning family preferences for schooling indicates that they value proximity to home as much as academic quality when choosing schools. However, preferences for proximity likely represent inability to access schools farther away from home, especially for disadvantaged students. I test whether distance and district boundaries constrain…

States that receive federal waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act were required to implement reforms in designated "Focus Schools" that contribute to achievement gaps. We examine the performance effects of such "differentiated accountability" reforms in Louisiana. These Focus School reforms emphasized school-needs assessments…

Arizona enrolls a larger share of its students in charter schools than any other state in the country, but no comprehensive examination exists of the impact of those schools on student achievement. Using student-level data covering all Arizona students from 2006 to 2012, we find that the performance of charter schools in Arizona in improving…

School reconstitution, a turnaround strategy that prescribes massive staffing turnover, is expected to result in more committed and capable school staff and innovative practices. However, little evidence supports this assumption. We use quasi-experimental designs to assess the impact of reconstitution on student achievement and teacher mobility,…

This study explores whether teacher performance trajectory over time differs by school-poverty settings. Focusing on elementary school mathematics teachers in North Carolina and Florida, we find no systematic relationship between school student poverty rates and teacher performance trajectories. In both high- (=60% free/reduced-price lunch [FRPL])…