Related UI Researchers

Publications on Education

Low-wage adult workers have trouble getting and keeping higher-paying jobs. Most lack the basic skills and education needed to move up, but certain kinds of assistance might give some the edge they need to break the pattern. In this summary, Holzer and Martinson recommend competitive federal matching block grants that reward states for developing new advancement systems which are linked to state workforce development structures. They would also require partnerships with employers and training providers, including community colleges.

Using a unique longitudinal dataset from Florida, we analyze the impact of classroom peers on individual student performance. Focusing on the influence of peers' fixed characteristics on individual test score gains, we control simultaneously for student and teacher fixed effects. We find some sizable, significant peer effects within nonlinear models, but not with linear specifications. We find peer effects depend on a student's own ability and on the ability of the peers under consideration. Peer effects tend to be smaller when teacher fixed effects are included, a result that suggests co-movement of peer and teacher quality within a student over time.

This two-guide set for evaluators and others interested in evaluation grew out of a National Science Foundation funded effort to improve cross project evaluations. Guide 1, Designing a Cross-Project Evaluation, focuses on evaluation design including identification and operationalization of program goals, building of logic models, and selection of indicators and appropriate measures for these indicators. Guide 2, Collecting and Using Data in Cross-Project Evaluation, lays out multiple issues involved in data collection, strengths and weaknesses of different data collection formats, and methods for ensuring data quality, confidentiality, and the protection of human subjects.

Tax rates can affect decisions regarding work, investment in human capital, and wealth accumulation, each of which modulates intra- and intergenerational economic mobility. Similarly, government spending affects mobility either by purchasing goods that may drive mobility, such as education and health, or by effectively lowering the cost of mobility-enhancing goods through tax deductions and credits. This review summarizes the literature on the effects of government tax and spending policy on economic mobility, with a focus on the impacts of changes in marginal tax rates, the tax treatment of wealth, and government spending on health care, education, and Social Security. (Review 10 of 11.)

Education policy is important to the discussion of mobility because it serves both as an end and a means to an end in eliminating inequalities. In addition to fostering mobility among those directly benefited by it, the children of beneficiaries may indirectly benefit as well. Thus, properly targeted education programs may enhance outcomes in both present and future generations. This review summarizes the complex and well-developed literature on the interplay between education and inter- and intragenerational economic mobility. (Review 2 of 11.)