Background: Research shows that serving as an assistant principal is a typical steppingstone to the principalship (Folsom et al., 2015; Goldring et al., 2021; Hitt & Player, 2019; Osborne-Lampkin & Folsom, 2017) and assistant principals serve important leadership roles in schools, supporting principals and teachers (Marshall & Hooley,…

Advocates for the use of a multi-measure system of performance evaluation argue that multiple measures may better capture meaningful differences in employee effectiveness and help align effort with organizational objectives. This may be particularly important in organizations such as schools that produce multiple outcomes. In this paper I use a…

Background: Learning trajectories (LTs) in early mathematics curriculum and teaching have received increasing attention (Baroody et al., 2019; Clements, 2007; Clements & Sarama, 2021; Maloney et al., 2014; Sarama & Clements, 2009). For example, LTs were a core construct in the National Research Council (2009) report on early mathematics…

Literacy skills are instrumental to unlocking a child's full potential and have a well-established link to long-term life outcomes. Children who can't read at grade level by 3rd grade are four times more likely to drop out of school, have fewer career prospects, and earn lower incomes as adults. However, despite some progress on literacy rates,…

Background/Context/Setting: In the wake of growing evidence regarding the negative impacts of suspension on student outcomes, states and school districts have implemented disciplinary reforms, restricting or eliminating the use of suspension for minor misbehaviors. Recent evaluations of these reforms suggest that they have the potential to…

With the expansion of performance-based incentives, there is growing interest in understanding how they affect leadership quality and composition. This paper studies a reform in a large urban public school district that ties principal compensation to their performance. Using a regression discontinuity design, I investigate the effect of…

Background: Parental involvement in early childhood is foundational to a child's later academic achievement (Heckman, 2007). Parent-child book reading is frequently recommended as a way to build a child's early cognitive skills. Evidence suggests that mother-child reading time increases children's vocabulary and reading skills (Price & Kalil,…

Background: Reading is a vital skill, key to school success, necessary for employment, and essential for functioning in everyday life. Many attempts to increase literacy have focused on schools, yet "out of school" factors have a substantial impact on student learning (Clabaugh, 2008). One non-instructional factor that may be part of…

Background/Context: Although professional development using coaching has been widely adopted as a way of improving early care and education practice, only recently have researchers begun to look at the content and features of coaching that lead to desired outcomes. This study examines one of the first projects to explore coaching components among…

Background: Reading failure is far higher among disadvantaged students than among other students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Many attempts to solve this have focused on schools, yet non-school factors have a substantial impact on learning (Clabaugh, 2008). One of these is uncorrected vision. Approximately 20-25% of school-age…

Background/Context: Taking even one Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), dual enrollment, or other college-preparatory course is positively associated with student outcomes including test scores; high school graduation; and college matriculation, major choice, and completion (Adelman, 2006; An & Taylor, 2019; Author,…

Background: Noncognitive skills are a critical component of human capital and are highly consequential for student life outcomes (Heckman et al., 2006; Cunha et al., 2010). While there is a great deal of debates around what noncognitive skills are, their measurement, and their interpretation (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015; Humphries & Kosse,…

Innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are a cornerstone of the United States' economic prosperity, yet national and international assessments paint a poor picture of students' STEM competencies (reference 1; reference 2). These data have led to transformative approaches to improve STEM education including…

Background/Context: Many states, school districts, and third-party platforms report measures of school performance. Such school ratings are widely consulted by parents and educators alike. The ratings appear to affect families' choices of where to live and where to enroll students (Bergman and Hill, 2018; Hasan and Kumar, 2019), as well as…

Background/Context: African American (AA) learners, like all other learners, bring into the classroom their cultural values, the way they express themselves, and how they problem-solve. Their life experiences, even at a young age, influence their social and emotional behavior. Unfortunately, all too many AA children experience life and family…