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NEW EdWorkingPapers
“Can we fight this fight?”: How Racial Politics Shape the Implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education Teaching Standards
In this study, we investigate the role of teacher education (TE) programs in filtering the implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education teaching guidelines in Pennsylvania. Drawing on a comparative case study of three TE programs across diverse institutional and political contexts, we find that implementation varied from surface-level adoption of the guidelines to deeper… more →
Who Belongs in Math? Gendered Peer Math Beliefs and Girls' Gender Beliefs, Math Beliefs, and Achievement
This paper studies how exposure to gendered peer math beliefs shapes girls' gender-math beliefs, their own math beliefs, and mathematics achievement. I exploit quasi-random variation in girls' exposure to peer math beliefs generated by random classroom assignment at entry into Chinese middle schools. Exposure to girls' and boys' peer math beliefs has opposite effects on gender-math beliefs:… more →
Head Start Plus: The Case for Piloting a Cadillac Public ECE Program
The long-term impacts of early childhood education (ECE) programs at scale are smaller than those produced by influential demonstration programs half a century ago. Several factors likely contribute, some of which are in the control of policymakers and the designers of ECE programs (e.g., targeting and quality), and some of which are not (quality of conditions for children not served by ECE… more →
23 Years of State Pre-K Expansion: How States Balance Investment, Access, and Quality in the Modern Era
We describe state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) expansion in the modern era from 2002 to 2024, documenting patterns of investment and reach. Although spending and enrollment increased substantially, states pursued widely varying expansion strategies. A 200% increase in pre-K enrollment did not reduce spending on enrolled children. Instead, we observed an average increase of 21% in per-pupil… more →
Unpacking Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in a Large-Scale Dropout-Prevention Experiment
Timely high school completion is a critical step in successful transitions to post-secondary schooling and the labor market. This randomized controlled trial, deployed in two urban, disadvantaged school districts, tests the effectiveness of a mature and comprehensive student-support program on an unusually large scale (n=2,528). While overall effects on graduation rates are small and… more →
Mapping the Mechanisms of Interdisciplinary Learning Transfer from Reading to Math Achievement: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Controlled Trial
Far transfer—the application of learning across distant domains—remains elusive in intervention research, and even when it is found, its mechanisms remain unclear or unexplored. This study analyzes data from the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a sustained content literacy intervention implemented in Grades 1-3 that demonstrated positive treatment effects on both near transfer reading and… more →
Policy and Practice Series
EdTalks
Centering Teachers in the AI Era
What happens when teachers are treated as professional decision-makers, not just end users of AI tools?
Weigh in: What’s on your mind regarding AI and the teaching profession? >>
We’ll soon record a conversation about the future of the teaching profession in an AI-enabled education system, grounded in two recent EdWorkingPapers.
Maya Kaul representing Landscape Analysis of the Teaching Profession
Dorottya Demszky representing Practitioner Voices Summit: How Teachers Evaluate AI Tools through Deliberative Sensemaking
Constance Lindsay, EdWorkingPapers Review Board member, facilitating the conversation