I wish I could be as sanguine as Matt & Robert. IMHO, high-quality, causal inference still occupies small, contested spaces in ed schools. The larger field has produced too few evidence-based insights relevant to policy & practice. And other professional schools differ in mixing rigor & advocacy.
Quantitative research in education is scandalously bad
Flyer for "Safe to Learn" congressional briefing
I'm pleased to be in DC today to speak at a congressional briefing on safe and supportive school environments and particularly to underscore the research on how recent immigration raids are influencing students and schools.
Yes. A *highly* controversial 2014 reform effectively required all students to wait until 9th grade to take Algebra with the reasoning based on equity concerns and claims about the deleterious effects of acceleration. The results were as you might expect (tom-dee.github.io/files/ER_202...).
However, I still see these early results as a cause for some celebration—and an example of the underappreciated power of reforms that raise student expectations and expand access to rich academic content.
There are multiple challenges ahead as San Francisco moves to scale up 8th grade access to Algebra, particularly with respect to promoting Algebra readiness among historically underserved students.
Students who took Algebra as an additional math class (AMC) experienced substantial learning gains while students at "Algebra for All" sites skipped Math 8 without clear academic harm.
In the last school year, after years of controversy, San Francisco schools fielded pilots that reintroduced Algebra to 8th grade. A preregistered, quasi-experimental study by Elizabeth Huffaker and me indicates the major pilots were largely successful.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/u...
The steep ⬇️ in U.S. public school enrollment during the pandemic has not reversed, SIEPR's @tomdee.bsky.social tells @theguardian.com in a fascinating story about the difficult. choices cash-strapped schools now face. "There are no free lunches," Dee says. Link 👇
#PublicEducation #EduSky
I had to read this from the state superintendent twice:
“Well, it’s not fraud. Most of it is just mistakes”
Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.
I spoke with The Minnesota Star Tribune about the research evidence, mine and others, which indicates the many ways in which aggressive immigration enforcement harms children, schools, and communities.
www.startribune.com/coronavirus-...
Glad to see @tomdee.bsky.social and Elizabeth Huffaker's work on accelerating opportunity in Algebra I out of the working papers and into @aeraedresearch.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.3102/0002...
FWIW, the detracking debate makes me crave a deeper discussion about the modal "college for all" design of high schools and the potential for design-forward alternatives that provide flexible, equitable access to different college & career pathways.
📢 Call for papers:
CESifo Area Conference on Economics of Education
co-organized w/ Eric Hanushek (Stanford)
🏛️ 11-12 Sept 2026, Munich
🧑🏫 Keynote: John List (Chicago) @johnlist.bsky.social
👉 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/ev...
⏰ Deadline: 11 May 2026
🖼️ Past programs:
sites.google.com/view/woessma...
For context, this drop in attendance rates related to the measles outbreak (about 93% to 90%) is almost as large as the initial drop in TX attendance rates from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic (95% in 2018-19 to 91% in 2021-22).
(TX attendance trends over time here: www.aei.org/research-pro...)
In 2000, measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. Today, declining child-vaccination rates are driving the largest measles resurgence we've seen in 3+ decades. How do these outbreaks impact schooling? @tomdee.bsky.social and I examine this question in West Texas, the country's largest outbreak.
Our preregistered study of mental-health co-responders—now out in Nature Human Behaviour (doi.org/10.1038/s415...) —finds positive benefits in terms of significant reductions in psychiatric detentions and future mental-health crises relative to police-only responses.
The aggressive immigration raids we now see across the nation began 10 months ago in California's Central Valley. Their impact on children, families, and communities is an important & active area of research
I'm pleased my study of the initial raid's early impact on students is now out in @pnas.org
👍 but I think it's far less difficult (and constraining of discovery) than some people think. For example, it's simple enough to preregister a "decision tree" of research designs to be informed by robustness checks.
The key thing is to create transparency to support sense-making of study results
Empirical evidence and conceptual reasoning suggest quasi-experimental studies—the most common form of studies making causal claims—have a "p-hacking" problem.
My essay on this and the case for adapting & adopting QED preregistration is now published in Evaluation Review.
doi.org/10.1177/0193...
Lecture photo, credit: Eric Patashnik
Such a warm, engaging, and informative visit! My thanks to the @annenberginstitute.bsky.social at Brown University for inviting me to give the Annenberg 2025 Distinguished Lecture.
Not sure but always happy to connect! I plan to stress some of the aligned ideas in this recent @edweek.org #K12BigIdeas essay👇 and your recent book! (www.amazon.com/rethinking-c...).
www.edweek.org/leadership/o...
I'm honored to give the Annenberg 2025 Distinguished Lecture next week and looking forward to being in conversation with this outstanding community.
Know any aspiring PhD students interested in quant studies in education? Please direct them to our programs in ed policy, econ of ed, or ed data science! I hope to welcome an energetic & ambitious student to join me in our new building 🌴☀️
Applications due November 17
ed.stanford.edu/admissions/a...
🚨Do you know a school, system, or network doing amazing work in support of student success in high school, particularly through a continuous-improvement approach?
Let's recognize them! Encourage them to apply for the Carnegie Award for Impact (cfdn.at/4o4gp58).
Applications due on November 10.
I have watched states delay releasing test scores for months as they work to message results and hope no one is paying attention.
"Educators should also understand the limitations of research evidence. Rigorous impact evaluations...can only tell us what has worked someplace at some time—not what will work universally for educators facing specific challenges." - @tomdee.bsky.social
www.edweek.org/leadership/o...
