Public policies targeting individuals based on need often impose disproportionate burden on communities that lack the resources to implement these policies effectively. In an elementary school setting, I examine whether community-level interventions focusing on similar needs and providing resources to build capacity in these communities could…

Public policies targeting individuals based on need often impose disproportionate burden on communities that lack the resources to implement these policies effectively. In an elementary school setting, I examine whether community-level interventions focusing on similar needs and providing resources to build capacity in these communities could…

Nationwide, the percentage of four-year-olds enrolled in state-supported preschool programs has more than doubled since the early 2000s as states dramatically increased their investments in early childhood education. Florida's Voluntary Pre-kindergarten Program (VPK), which began in 2005, has been a national leader with respect to preschool…

Most studies of test-based promotion policies focus on measuring the effect of retention (being left back) on later student outcomes, and the evidence is fairly mixed. However, test-based promotion policies do not only affect the students who are retained. Presumably, they also affect students and schools as they try to improve reading performance…

"The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB) made schools accountable for student performance through standardized testing. Some claim high-stakes testing is an inexpensive vehicle through which to raise educational standards, however, these studies typically count only the administrative costs of test development, test delivery, and…

State and municipal policymakers are increasingly addressing the practice of social promotion in schools--moving children along to the next grade whether or not they have mastered the curriculum--by mandating test-based grade promotion. This paper draws conclusions about the effects of a policy limiting social promotion. To do so, it employs a…

Existing research provides little insight into the relative merits of universal programs and those targeted to specific groups. While there have been several recent studies of the short-term effects of universal preschool programs in the U.S., there is no evidence to date on long-term consequences. Some studies suggest that Head Start has lasting…

This study uses geocoded address data and information about parents' economic behavior and children's development from four random-assignment welfare and anti-poverty experiments conducted during the 1990s. We find that the impacts of these welfare and anti-poverty programs on boys' and girls' developmental outcomes during the transition to early…

Social promotion has long been the normal practice in American schools. Critics of this practice, whereby students are promoted to the next grade regardless of academic preparation, have suggested that students would benefit academically if they were made to repeat a grade. Supporters of social promotion claim that retaining students (i.e, holding…

Of the many entrenched school customs that have been reconsidered and reformed over the past decade, social promotion has been among the most resistant to change. Holding children back in the same grade has long been frowned upon, and a large body of research seems to support that point of view. Despite the old habits and the old research,…

Beginning in the 2002-03 school year, the revised Florida School Code required 3rd grade students to demonstrate reading proficiency by scoring at level 2 or higher on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). If not, the student must be retained, unless exempted from mandatory retention for special circumstances…