Educational Policy

This study employs a document analysis of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan submitted to the United States (US) federal government from 2017 to 2022 in order to examine Title II, Part A, implementation across all states. We analyzed state-level fund allocation, type and number of leadership development activities, and discrepancies between planned and actual spending. Results reveal substant…

In this qualitative case study, I examined how a large urban county designed and implemented a homelessness-response strategy and the extent to which the strategy incorporated students experiencing homelessness and public education systems. Drawing on document analysis and 22 interviews with policymakers, service providers, and education leaders, the study found that, despite high rates of studen…

This comparative organizational ethnography examines how two physical science PhD programs, operating under state affirmative action bans, navigate legal compliance while sustaining their commitments to diversity. Drawing on inhabited institutionalism and legal endogeneity, we show how, despite similar policy and disciplinary environments, each program interpreted the law differently and construc…

Math anxiety represents a substantial barrier to many students’ math learning. In this paper, we apply interdisciplinary perspectives to data on over 13,200 ninth graders and their math teachers from the High School Longitudinal Study. Results suggest that being perceived as dis/abled relates to heightened math anxiety regardless of adolescents’ gender, or race and ethnicity. Our intersectional a…

This study explores the effect of waiver school improvement designations on student achievement. In states that received waivers, schools designated for improvement had worse outcomes than undesignated schools (−0.044 SD). The average effect obscures the significant positive effect of the designations in 14 of the 44 states that received waivers. Federal per pupil education funding accounted for …

Education leaders increasingly seek to integrate data into decision-making processes as they confront difficult choices about how to invest public resources. This paper assesses the consequences of data-driven decisions related to systems-level investments in career and technical education (CTE). Using Massachusetts administrative records, we evaluate various decision rules—from simple population…

Youth in foster care face disproportionate challenges when it comes to education and personal well-being. Many studies use a deficit lens when evaluating these challenges. In contrast, this study is asset-based, centering first-person accounts from five former foster youth college graduates. Using a counter-narrative framework, we conducted semi-structured interviews with participants to reveal k…

School choice policy is often touted as offering more choices to families whose school options are limited by traditional zoning. However, too many options or too much information may create a “paradox of choice,” resulting in anxiety and dissatisfaction. Through a mixed-methods study, including a survey experiment and interviews, we test whether reducing the number of school options or simplifyi…

This study examines whether and which aspects of statewide merit-aid policies influence students’ enrollment, retention, and completion outcomes at public four-year institutions, before exploring the influence of discontinuing merit aid on student outcomes. Using a novel dataset capturing details of merit-based aid policies for public four-year institutions over nearly two decades, we find sugges…

This study uses data from 2,933 youth from the Future Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the extent to which school absences at age 15 predict key educational milestones by the end of high school, including disciplinary infractions, academic performance and college readiness, and education status. We also considered whether these associations varied for health-related absences and days…

A growing body of research shows that students benefit when they demographically match their teachers. However, little is known about how matching affects social-emotional development. We use student-fixed effects to exploit changes over time in the proportion of teachers within a school grade who demographically match a student to estimate the effect on social-emotional measures, test scores, an…

In this study, we introduce a new database documenting mechanisms of staff representation in shared governance within the southern region of the United States. We identified over 240 four-year, degree-granting institutions with evidence of a staff governing body and conducted a regression analysis to determine the relationship between staff representation and institutional characteristics. The re…

This cross-sectional study combines data from the Equity in Athletics Disclosure website and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to analyze the factors associated with Title IX compliance in respect to the proportional representation of women in college athletics in the academic years of 2002–2003, 2012–2013, and 2022–2023 across NCAA divisions. It introduces admission and …

Schools are increasingly partnering with outdoor education providers to address growing educational demands for hands-on STEM learning and social and emotional skill development. Using the Eisenhardt case study method, we developed an empirically based framework designed to guide school staff, outdoor education providers, and policymakers in building strong outdoor education partnerships. The fra…

Using interviews with transfer personnel at five community colleges and seven public universities, we examine competing institutional logics—or belief systems—for how personnel approach vertical transfer and implement statewide reforms that call for transparency in programs’ recommended course sequences. Personnel who relied more on developmental logic viewed degree plans as customizable to indiv…

School discipline has been documented as a source of racial disparity in schooling in the United States. Black students are often referred for discipline infraction due to subjective offenses such as persistent disrespect, disruption, or misbehavior. These subjective policies lead to Black students having increased office discipline referrals and ultimately exclusionary discipline outcomes. This …

This paper presents a case study of a caring school district located in a farmworker community composed largely of Latinx families. I examine how central office leaders create or maintain care supports under crisis conditions. Findings suggest that district-level care was multidimensional and distributed, involving mobilization of community leadership, improvisational structures, and novel leader…

When adolescents experiencing mental health difficulties lack access to mental health services, it can lead to negative consequences, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). School counselors play critical roles in providing care to youth who might otherwise lack access, but extant literature on counselors rarely accentuates their effects on mental health outcomes. This study examines w…

This mixed methods research explores superintendents’ beliefs about and engagement in state education policymaking processes. Through interviews with 58 superintendents and a national survey of superintendents, I find that superintendents feel their voices have value in state policymaking spaces; however, actual policy engagement is relatively low. Three factors shape superintendents’ state polic…

Charter schools were originally envisioned as laboratories of innovation, but we have scant empirical evidence of how charter policies and ideas have spread beyond charter walls into the wider educational landscape. The diffusion of knowledge reflects networks of power, and tracing diffusion can unearth the discursive and power dynamics at play. Using a systematic search of publicly-available doc…