School choice may lead to improvements in school productivity if parents' choices reward effective schools and punish … ineffective ones. This mechanism requires parents to choose schools based on causal effectiveness rather than peer characteristics … estimate impacts on college attendance and college quality. Parents prefer schools that enroll high-achieving peers, and these …

. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures … instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also …

This paper is the first to explore the effects of school accountability systems on high-achieving students' long … basic skills apparently led to generally reduced performance by high-achieving students, while an accountability system … other technical subjects. Both types of systems are associated with increased "cramming" by students in college. The results …

students. However, very little empirical work has to date been completed on this topic. This paper provides the first empirical … every third, fourth, and fifth grader in a large school district over four years, we match students' test score gains and … substantial evidence that higher grading standards benefit students. We find that these effects are not uniform: High …

This study makes use of detailed student-level data from eight cohorts of first-year students at Northwestern … students learn relatively more from non-tenure line professors in their introductory courses. These differences are present … across a wide variety of subject areas, and are particularly pronounced for Northwestern's average students and less …

a regression discontinuity design, we document how a third grade retention policy affects both the target children and … their younger siblings. The policy improves test scores of both children while the spillover is up to 30% of the target … child effect size. The effects are particularly pronounced in families where one of the children is disabled, for boys, and …

better than third generation immigrants. Among first generation immigrants, the earlier the arrival, the better the students … tend to perform. These patterns of findings hold for both Asian and Hispanic students, and suggest a general pattern of …

This study examines the effects of negative equity on children's academic performance, using data on children attending … selection into initial mortgage terms. In contrast to the existing literature on foreclosure and children's outcomes, we find … that Florida students with the highest risk of negative equity exhibit significantly higher test score growth. These …

affirm that marginal returns to education among children of less-educated parents are as high and perhaps much higher than … education and earnings than other men. The education and earnings gains are concentrated among men with poorly-educated parents …

students' stress responses using cortisol samples provided by low-income students in New Orleans. We measure how their cortisol … experienced by students outside of school. Chronic stress - due to neighborhood violence, poverty, or family instability - can …, can affect whether performance on standardized tests is a valid measure of students' actual ability. We collect data on …