The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), most recently comprehensively amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; P.L. 114-95), is the primary source of federal aid to support elementary and secondary education. The Title I-A program is the largest grant program authorized under the ESEA and was funded at $17.5 billion for FY2022.…

State-funded preschool is already offered in mixed-delivery settings in most states, meaning that along with public schools, children are also served in settings such as child care centers, Head Start agencies, and private schools. However, just 39% of 4-year-olds and 14% of 3-year-olds were enrolled in publicly-funded programs, such as…

In the 2020-2021 school year, more than 25 million children and youth -- roughly half of all elementary and secondary students in the United States -- attended schools in school districts that lacked dedicated funding to identify and support students experiencing homelessness. This significant funding gap increases the likelihood that many…

In spring 2020, a worldwide pandemic caused many postsecondary institutions to pivot from face-to-face to online learning for the remainder of the semester. While some institutions reverted to face-to-face teaching in fall 2020, many institutions mainly remained online. As a result, the effect of students' disparate access to enabling technology…

This paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an increase in per-pupil total revenue and expenditure.…

Many recent critical reforms in state school finance systems have been catalyzed by the courthouse, not the statehouse. Advocates for equity-focused school finance reforms often consider legal action as the best path to significant policy changes. This brief discusses state-level lawsuits on adequacy and equity grounds and their outcomes.

Expulsion and suspension (or exclusionary discipline) in early care and education (ECE) are widely recognized as harmful to children. Numerous states have developed expulsion and suspension prevention policies through legislation or administrative rules. However, there is limited research on the implementation of state policies designed to reduce…

The purpose of this study is to examine in what ways, if any, the introduction of the equity incentive portion of Louisiana's performance-based funding model impacted the underserved student groups it was designed to support. I employed a quantitative quasi-experimental design for this study by running three outcome variables (Adult Learner…

The use of performance-based funding that ties state higher education appropriations to performance metrics has increased dramatically in recent years, but most programs place at stake a small percent of overall funding. We analyze the effect of two notable exceptions--Ohio and Tennessee--where nearly all state funding is tied to performance…

We compiled the first longitudinal data set with detailed state funding information to examine whether different funding strategies for public higher education correlate with college access and completion, with a focus on outcomes among racially minoritized students. We found no relationships between funding mechanisms and student outcomes at…

The Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI) launched in 2014 as a collaborative effort to help districts promote student success and improve their fiscal and operational effectiveness. The initiative focuses on four major aspects of institutional effectiveness: 1) student performance and outcomes; 2) accreditation status; 3)…

This brief informs California's LEA leaders about approaches to sustainably modernizing school facilities to advance educational and health equity for students and briefly explores associated funding strategies.

Launching new, pioneering programs to improve student outcomes requires consistent support to help maximize impact. The Region 1 Comprehensive Center (R1CC) and the Maine Department of Education (Maine DOE) wanted to provide evidence-based strategies to support pilot programs launched under the state's Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each paper, I use applied econometric methods to study the interaction between immigration policy and the postsecondary policy. The findings offer insights about how immigration policy can influence the education outcomes of undocumented individuals. In my first paper, I explore the effect on…

Given the proliferation of college promise programs and the increasing popularity of last-dollar designs, we explore changes to states' financial aid resource environments following the adoption of two of the largest and longest-operating state programs: Tennessee Promise and Oregon Promise. We leverage descriptive tools and a causal-inference…