The Impacts of Educational Policies on Disadvantaged Groups
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PST)
- Chair: Christopher Walters, University of California-Berkeley
The Effects of Accelerated Middle School Math on STEM Degree Completion
Abstract
Women are less likely than men to graduate from college with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields – a gap that is often attributed to pre-college factors. We study the effects of an accelerated middle school math program for high-achieving students on college completion and major choice, focusing on potential gender differences. The program creates an upper track for students who are already taking advanced math in 6th grade: we use a regression discontinuity approach to show that admission to the upper track leads to substantial gains the fraction completing algebra and/or geometry by 8th grade, with larger effects for female students. It also leads to a significant 15 percentage point (ppt) gain in the fraction of females taking calculus by the end of high school, and a 9 ppt rise in the share of young women who graduate high school on time and enter college the next fall. These changes are accompanied by a 7 ppt rise in the share of young women who graduate within 5 years with a bachelor’s degree in STEM, and a 10 ppt rise in the share with a degree in STEM or business/economics. In contrast, the effects on the college completion and major choice of males are uniformly small and insignificant.The Efficacy of For-Profit Teacher Training Programs
Abstract
This paper examines the efficacy of for-profit teacher training programs in Texas. To combat teacher shortages, Texas has taken a unique approach by allowing potential teachers to fulfill their training requirements through programs run by for-profit companies. For-profit programs offer a quicker path to a teaching career than traditional university-based programs, but they are often criticized for providing low-quality training. There is little evidence on the efficacy of these for-profit programs despite the fact that they produce roughly half of all newly-certified teachers in Texas and are expanding operations to other states. Our paper fills this gap by using Texas administrative data to examine how the growth of for-profit programs impacted the supply and quality of Texas teachers. Our identification strategy exploits the staggered rollout of for-profit openings across Texas. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the entry of for-profit programs increased the probability that college graduates pursued teaching careers, thus increasing the supply of teachers. On the other hand, we show that teachers who received their training through for-profit programs have lower value-added and higher turnover rates than university-trained teachers. Future work will examine the relative magnitudes of these supply and quality effects by estimate their net impact on the achievement of Texas public school students.Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment
Abstract
In the U.S., declining college enrollment has driven substantial policy conversation about the health of the postsecondary sector. We first show descriptively that enrollment declines: have little to do with the four-year sector; are driven largely by community colleges; and that some of this apparent decline is to changing classifications of college sectors. Pre-Great Recession data shows that a 1 percent point increase in the local unemployment rate reduces first-time community college enrollment by about 2 percent. Applying this estimate suggests that strengthening labor markets since 2009 explain about half of the post-Great Recession decline in first-time community college enrollment. The marginal missing student appears unlikely to have completed a college degree.Discussant(s)
Serena Canaan
,
Simon Fraser University
Mark Hoekstra
,
Baylor University
Damon Clark
,
University of California-Irvine
Melanie Wasserman
,
University of California-Los Angeles
JEL Classifications
- I2 - Education and Research Institutions
- J0 - General