During the 2020-2021 academic year, the U.S. Department of Education reported teacher shortages in nearly every state, and within key subject areas, nationwide. Indeed, a recent national survey found that two-thirds of school districts report significant teacher shortages across math, science,...

With the federal judiciary continuing its virtual withdrawal from adjudicating school finance controversies, the process of vindicating a child’s right to education has once again been left to state and local officials to resolve. As this Article demonstrates, however, states and localities...

In 2013 the responsibility for school governance and funding has been transferred from local governments to a central government agency in Hungary. The key objectives of this reform, as stated by policy makers, was to mitigate interjurisdictional inequalities in education. This paper explores...

We study the effects of increased school spending in rural American school districts by leveraging the introduction and subsequent expansion of Wisconsin's Sparsity Aid Program. We find that the program, which provides additional state funding to small and isolated school districts, increased...

In 2013 the responsibility for school governance and funding has been transferred from local governments to a central government agency in Hungary. The key objectives of this reform, as stated by policy makers, was to mitigate interjurisdictional inequalities in education. This paper explores...

This paper contributes to the teacher sorting literature by analyzing equity in the distribution of teachers in three educational systems in Latin America, with different equalization policies, teacher assignment rules, and incentives to work in disadvantaged schools: Chile, Colombia, and Peru....

School accountability schemes require measures of school performance, and these measures are in practice often based on pupil test scores. It is well-known that insufficiently correcting these test scores for pupil characteristics may provide incentives for inefficient pupil selection. We show...

Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether such investments actually change the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student...

This paper provides causal evidence that greater minority representation on school boards translates into greater investment in minority students. Focusing on California school boards, I obtain causal effects by instrumenting for minority (specifically, Hispanic) school board representation...