This dissertation is comprised of three essays on the economics of education. The first and third chapters examine marijuana legalization and its effects on students, while the second chapter examines the impact of pension incentives on teacher quality. The first chapter examines the extent to which there are negative spillovers of recreational…

Background: Four-day school week (FDSW) use has increased substantially among US districts in recent years, but limited data exist on health impacts of this school schedule. This study examined associations of reduced school exposure via FDSWs with adolescent health and risk behaviors, obesity, and food security. Methods: Self-report data from…

This study investigated whether the presence of school-based health centers (SBHCs) was associated with six substance use behaviors among sexual minority youth (SMY) and their heterosexual peers. Data from the 2015 Oregon Healthy Teens Survey, including 13,608 11th graders in 137 schools (26 with SBHCs) were used in the current study. Multilevel…

Previous research on pubertal timing has either evaluated contextual predictors of early puberty or negative adjustment outcomes associated with off-time development, especially early maturation. In this study, we integrated these 2 lines of research by evaluating the moderating influence of early childhood household risk on associations between…

Although effective outpatient treatments have been identified for the well-documented negative outcomes associated with delinquency and substance use, effective treatments for youths in out-of-home care are rare. In this study, 12- and 18-month substance use outcomes were examined for a sample of 79 boys who were randomly assigned to…

Many adolescents experiment with marijuana; the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 46% of high school seniors have tried this drug at some time. Pushing boundaries is what young people do, and some researchers believe that trying marijuana is a normal part of growing up. RAND Corporation researchers have revisited Shedler and Block's…

The present study investigated whether adolescent cigarette, alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use predicts life satisfaction in young adulthood. Survey data were used from a longitudinal cohort of 2376 adolescents at ages 18 and 29, originally recruited from California and Oregon middle schools at age 13. Results of multivariate models indicated…

Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among public school students continues to be a major concern in Oregon as it is across the nation. This report, the sixth of the biannual public school drug use surveys conducted in Oregon since 1986, discusses major findings. These findings are (1) marijuana use is up for both the eighth and eleventh grades;…