This article examines the impacts of the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC), a statewide college-preparatory curriculum that applies to the high school graduating class of 2011 and later. Our analyses suggest that the higher expectations embodied in the MMC had slight impact on student outcomes. Looking at student performance in the ACT, the only…

We estimate school-choice preferences revealed by the rank-ordered lists submitted by more than 22,000 applicants to a citywide lottery for more than 200 traditional and charter public schools in Washington, D.C. The results confirm previously reported findings that commuting distance, school demographics, and academic indicators play important…

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250% of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This article…

Skeptics of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter school network argue that these schools rely on selective admission, attrition, and replacement of students to produce positive achievement results. We investigate this using data covering 19 KIPP middle schools. On average, KIPP schools admit students disadvantaged in ways similar to other…

Over the past 70 years, all states in the United States began to publicly subsidize kindergarten using state revenue. The variation in adoption dates across states allows for a unique opportunity to measure the effectiveness of the largest early education program implemented in recent history. The significant, immediate increase in the…

Many policymakers suggest that school-based reading coaches can improve teachers' practice, which consequently will improve students' literacy skills. Although reading coaches are increasingly prevalent in schools nationwide, empirical evidence for their effects on student achievement is scarce. This article helps to address this gap by conducting…

This study evaluates 35 federal and privately sponsored databases that report national education statistics in terms of their potential for informing policy deliberations. It argues that for all the national data collected, information is lacking on several major concerns, is often inadequate statistically, and is sometimes contradictory. Various…

The effectiveness of indirect incentive grants by California on school district spending was investigated by using state data to document the impact of the incentives under Senate Bill 813 (1983). Incentives appeared to be more effective in directing spending toward direct instruction than other grants. (SLD)