The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and recent legislation in a number of states have raised the standards for accountability in schools, with the objective of closing achievement gaps and increasing student performance overall. These new education policies, however, rarely address the way in...

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to establish goals for all students and for groups of students characterized by race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, and limited English proficiency, and requires schools to make annual progress in meeting these goals. In a number of states,...

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires states to establish goals for all students and for groups of students characterized by race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, and limited English proficiency and requires schools to make annual progress in meeting these goals. In a number of...

Tenure policies for elementary and secondary school teachers is a controversial issue in many states, but there is virtually no empirical evidence on how tenure affects teacher labor markets. This paper begins to fill this research void by using cross-state variation in tenure policies to...

We use data on vote outcomes from a universal voucher initiative to examine whether white households with children in public schools will use vouchers to leave predominantly nonwhite schools, thereby contributing to more racially and ethnically segregated schools. We find that white households...

Opponents of school vouchers often argue that school vouchers will lead to .white flight. from public schools that are disproportionately non-white, creating more racially segregated schools. In this paper, we present new evidence on whether universal vouchers will lead to a systematic departure...

This paper examines who is likely to gain and who is likely to lose under a universal voucher program. Following Epple and Romano (1998, 2003), and Nechyba (2000, 2003a), we focus on the idea that gains and losses under a universal voucher depend on two effects: changes in peer group composition...

This study synthesizes what we know and do not know about policies to attract and retain teachers in high-need schools and assesses the relative cost-effectiveness of two types of policies. Research consistently shows that teacher quality is likely to be lower in schools with higher proportions...

In the wake of school finance reforms that limit local tax revenue and, more recently, state budget cuts that have threatened K-12 education spending, an increasing number of schools and school districts have appealed to parents and communities for voluntary contributions to augment school...