Education researchers and policy makers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student...

Using data for North Carolina public school students in grades 3 to 8, we examine achievement gaps between white students and students from other racial and ethnic groups. We focus on successive cohorts of students who stay in the state's public schools for all six years, and study both...

We study the evolution of a campus-based aid program for low-income students that began with grant-heavy financial aid and later added a suite of non-financial supports. We find little to no evidence that program eligibility during the early years (2004–2006), in which students received...

A defining characteristic of charter schools is that they introduce a strong market element into public education. In this paper, we examine the evolution of the charter school sector in North Carolina between 1999 and 2012 through the lens of a market model. We examine trends in the mix of...

We study the evolution of a campus-based aid program for low-income students that began with grant-heavy financial aid and later added a suite of non-financial supports. We find little to no evidence that program eligibility during the early years (2004-2006), in which students received...

Analyzing data for the 100 largest school districts in the South and Border states, we ask whether there is evidence of "resegregation" of school districts and whether levels of segregation can be linked to judicial decisions. We distinguish segregation measures indicating the extent of racial...

We use administrative data on North Carolina public schools to document the tendency for more highly qualified teachers to be matched with more advantaged students, and we measure the bias this pattern generates in estimates of the impacts of various teacher qualifications on student...

This paper investigates the simultaneous relationship between tax rates and city property tax bases using data for 86 large U.S. cities in 1967, 1972, 1977, and 1982. We find that a 10 percent increase in the city's property tax rate decreases the city's tax base by about 1.5 percent. In...

For a three-year time period beginning in 2001, North Carolina awarded an annual bonus of $1,800 to certified math, science and special education teachers working in high poverty or academically failing public secondary schools. Using longitudinal data on teachers, we estimate hazard models that...

Recent discussions of school choice have revived arguments that the decentralization of governing institutions can enhance the quality of public services by increasing the participation of intended beneficiaries in the production of those services. We use data from the Schools and Staffing...