The Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS), the value-added model (VAM) sold by the international business analytics software company SAS Institute Inc., is advertised as offering "precise, reliable and unbiased results that go far beyond what other simplistic [value-added] models found in the market today can provide." In this…

This paper proposes a new methodology for estimating teacher value-added. Rather than imposing a normality assumption on unobserved teacher quality (as in the standard empirical Bayes approach), our nonparametric estimator permits the underlying distribution to be estimated directly and in a computationally feasible way. The resulting estimates…

States are responsible for setting and evaluating the standards that teacher preparation programs (TPPs) must meet for accreditation. Despite the considerable investment that states make in this process, no prior research has linked the ratings of TPPs generated by program reviews to inservice teacher performance. In this paper, we describe…

This dissertation studies a few topics in industrial organization. In the first two chapters, I study the education market from the perspective of industrial organization. Chapter 3 studies second-price auctions with participation costs. Chapters 1 and 2 study the high school market of a large city in China that introduced a policy allowing public…

This study compares the estimated grammar school effect in different regression models, and explains why previous evidence of the effectiveness of grammar school is mixed. Like most studies of school effectiveness evaluation, previous research on grammar school effect usually applies regression to control for confounding between-school factors and…

Although existing research suggests that students benefit on a range of outcomes when they enroll in early algebra classes, policy efforts that accelerate algebra enrollment for large numbers of students often have negative effects. Explanations for this apparent contradiction often emphasize the potential role of teacher and peer effects, which…

This technical report provides an overview of the datasets and methodology used in the main report, "Investigating the Potential Use of Long-Term School and College Destination Measures. Final Report" (see ED619071). The purpose of the main report is to investigate the potential for using Department for Education's (DfE's) Longitudinal…

This dissertation consists of three essays that use and develop econometric methods to causally investigate topics in education and development economics. In the first chapter, I develop an econometric framework to correctly and efficiently draw inference in models where estimated value-added (VA) is an explanatory variable (and models where it…

The purpose of the study is to close the gap in the literature regarding the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model (MTEM) that lacks large scale empirical investigations to assess the predictability of the model. The study thoroughly reviews the extant literature from all teacher evaluation frameworks, particularly focusing on the large body of…

This study investigates how uncertainty works in science policy debates by considering an unusual case: one in which uncertainty-based arguments for delay come from the scientific community, rather than industry actors. The case I present is the central use of value-added modeling (VAM) in the evaluation of individual teachers, a controversial…

Two trends play an increasing role in shaping the long-term prospects of children across the United States: a growing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-based economy and rising income segregation. Together, they suggest that the future well-being of U.S. children may be based increasingly on the contemporary interplay of…

Background: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, American students have demonstrated substantial losses in achievement (Amplify, 2021; Domingue et al., 2021; Dorn et al., 2020; Storey & Zhang, 2023), while chronic absenteeism doubled after the pandemic, with the largest increase among low-income students (Chang et al., 2022; Dorn et al., 2021). Among…

In this study, researchers compared the concordance of teacher-level effectiveness ratings derived via six common generalized value-added model (VAM) approaches including a (1) student growth percentile (SGP) model, (2) value-added linear regression model (VALRM), (3) value-added hierarchical linear model (VAHLM), (4) simple difference (gain)…

Using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-Test to analyze 128 survey responses from K-12 teachers, this paper considers how value-added measures (VAM) impact educators' decisions to include Latinx topics in their social studies lessons. The authors found that VAM teachers are more likely to rely on district/state curriculum standards whereas non-VAM…

Background: The study asks when does inclusive research add value? The authors argue that this is important, given the additional time and cost of co-researching with people with intellectual disabilities. The study is situated in debates about a "second generation" of inclusive research which advocates focussing more on outcomes than…