What would it take to truly close the vast opportunity gaps in pre-K-12 public education in the United States--far beyond the weak standard in common use of "adequacy" based on test scores? This report presents findings from the North Carolina part of a national costing-out study called the "Price of Opportunity," which seeks…

This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school district bonds, test scores, and house prices for 29 U.S. states and a research design that exploits close elections with staggered timing, we show that increased school capital spending raises test scores and house…

The three articles that comprise this dissertation examine different ways that current teachers can express leadership outside of their classrooms, through labor activity and within-school instructional leadership. I use descriptive and quasi-experimental quantitative analysis to examine which teachers take on these roles, their effectiveness, the…

Using generalized difference-in-difference and synthetic control modeling, this study estimates the influence of the community-college baccalaureate (CCB) on institutional finance over time and by intensity. Leveraging data spanning 19 years (1999-2017), I find no impact on overall revenue but suggestive evidence of upfront costs and slight…

This paper asks whether improving the quality of public schools can be an effective long-run crime-prevention strategy in the U.S. Specifically, we examine the effect of school quality improvements early in children's lives on the likelihood that they are arrested as adults. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in school quality due to…

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the biggest disruption to EU countries' societies and economies, including their education systems, since World War II. Responding to the crisis has forced national governments to increase their spending to keep the economy and public services afloat. This situation has brought about significant opportunities as…

Current researchers have not been clear on whether or not professional development expenditures, at the school district level, share any possible relationships with student achievement outcomes on state-level summative testing. While there are many articles and numerous research studies on the concept, they are very contradictory in their…

In recent years, the public policy landscape has placed an increased emphasis on increasing the proportion of adults holding postsecondary credentials, particularly among underrepresented populations. Individuals with disabilities--many of whom begin their postsecondary journey at community colleges (Ankeny & Lehmann, 2011; Miller et al.,…

Drawing on data from the Early Learning Network (n =4,807; 47% Hispanic; 25% White; 14% Black; 9% Asian; 4% Multiracial; 1% Other) along with the Stanford Education Data Archive, Civil Rights Data Collection, and Common Core of Data, this study examined the associations between several aspects of elementary school characteristics and children's…

The longstanding debate over K-12 funding in Michigan has recently intensified. Some point to "record spending" alongside lagging achievement relative to other states; others contend that, once adjusted for inflation, schools remain underfunded. This conversation is important as education is the second largest component of Michigan's…

As enrollments in school privatization programs grow, advocates continue to argue that school vouchers and education savings accounts (ESAs) have positive effects on public school finances. In its "Fiscal Factbook: 2025 Edition," EdChoice, a well-known advocate of school privatization, presents a collection of data points offered in…

Background: The most recent Farm to School (FTS) Census reported that of the 42% of US schools that participate in FTS, 77% procure food locally. In 2019, Colorado joined many other states in passing legislation that provides per-meal incentives for purchasing local foods. However, little is known about how these incentives impact procurement…

Simon Kuznets and John Maynard Keynes did research on the subject of propensity to consume. Kuznets asserted that people do not alter their consumption/saving ratio and spend more when they have more disposable income. Keynes alleged that when disposable income increases, the rate of saving also increases over time because people tend to keep…

We study how health insurance eligibility affects financial distress for young adults using the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) dependent coverage mandate--the part of the ACA that requires private health insurance plans to cover individuals up to their 26th birthday. We examine the effects of both gaining and losing eligibility by exploiting the…

This brief describes how several commonly used per-pupil funding measures derived from federal data include passthrough funding in the numerator but exclude students attached to this funding from the denominator, artificially inflating per-pupil ratios. Three forms of passthrough funding for students not educated by the school district where they…