Teachable
Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives
Matthew Kraft et al.
NBER Working Paper, February 2026
Abstract:
We examine how performance changes when teachers transfer across very different school contexts. The Talent Transfer Initiative program created a rare natural experiment to study such transfers by randomly assigning low-achieving schools the ability to offer high-performing teachers at higher-achieving schools a $20,000 transfer stipend. Forecast tests show that these high-performing teachers’ prior value added is only moderately predictive of their effectiveness in low-achieving schools. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we estimate that incentivized-transfer teachers’ value added dropped by 0.12 student standard deviations. This decline appears to be driven by lower match quality, negative indirect school effects, and the loss of student-specific human capital.
The Paradox of School Choice? Experimental Evidence on Choice Architecture, Anxiety, and Satisfaction
Sarah Winchell Lenhoff et al.
Educational Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
School choice policy is often touted as offering more choices to families whose school options are limited by traditional zoning. However, too many options or too much information may create a “paradox of choice,” resulting in anxiety and dissatisfaction. Through a mixed-methods study, including a survey experiment and interviews, we test whether reducing the number of school options or simplifying the information about them reduces parent stress and increases satisfaction. We find that reducing options and simplifying information does not result in better psychological outcomes and that the actual school choice process is not particularly stressful. More advantaged parents tend to experience greater stress than less advantaged parents. Through qualitative analysis, we uncover possible explanations for these counterintuitive findings.
"Workhorses of Opportunity": Regional Universities Increase Local Social Mobility
Greg Howard & Russell Weinstein
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Regional public universities educate approximately 70% of students at four-year public institutions, and more among those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Exploiting the effectively random 19th-century allocation of normal schools — which became regional universities — versus insane asylums, we estimate regional universities’ impact on nearby children using full-count census and Opportunity Insights data. Recent children in counties assigned a normal school achieve better educational attainment, economic, and social outcomes, especially lower-income children. For several key outcomes, the effects reflect a causal effect on children rather than residential sorting. Using survey evidence, we study the geographic frictions that deter asylum-county children from attending college.
Do preschool investments depreciate and fadeout or result in dynamic complementarities? An assessment using the Head Start Impact Study
Robert Kaestner & Cuiping Schiman
Review of Economics of the Household, March 2026, Pages 61-97
Abstract:
In this article, we use data from the Head Start Impact Study to assess the effect of attending preschool at ages three and four on cognitive and behavioral skills and whether these effects depreciate and fadeout or result in dynamic complementarities that affect skills. Evidence from our analyses suggests that effects of preschool depreciated significantly within a year and that there were no positive dynamic complementarities that offset depreciation. Furthermore, our findings suggest that only a small fraction of the accumulation of cognitive and behavioral skills from ages three to four and four to five can be explained by preschool attendance limiting its ability to address racial and socioeconomic disadvantages in child development.
Sleep: Educational Impact and Habit Formation
Osea Giuntella, Silvia Saccardo & Sally Sadoff
Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is growing evidence on the importance of sleep for productivity, but little is known about the impact of interventions targeting sleep. In a field experiment among U.S. university students, we show that incentives for sleep increase both sleep and academic performance. Motivated by theories of cue-based habit formation, our primary intervention couples personalized bedtime reminders with morning feedback and immediate rewards for sleeping at least seven hours on weeknights. The intervention increases the share of nights with at least seven hours of sleep by 26 percent and average weeknight sleep by an estimated 19 minutes during a four-week treatment period, with persistent effects of about eight minutes per night during a one to five-week post-treatment period. Comparisons to secondary treatments show that immediate incentives have larger impacts on sleep than delayed incentives or reminders and feedback alone during the treatment period, but do not have statistically distinguishable impacts on longer-term sleep habits in the post-treatment period. We estimate that immediate incentives improve average semester course performance by 0.075 - 0.089 grade points, a 0.10 - 0.11 standard deviation increase. Our results demonstrate that incentives to sleep can be a cost-effective tool for improving educational outcomes.
Educational achievement gains afforded by moving to single-family rentals
Tom Mayock & Kelly Vosters
Journal of Housing Economics, March 2026
Abstract:
Changes in the supply and location of single-family rental homes have increased opportunities for renters’ children to attend high-performing public schools. In this paper, we use a unique database of linked administrative and housing records to show that when renter households take advantage of these new housing opportunities and move to neighborhoods zoned for better schools, their children realize significant gains in academic achievement. Importantly, we find that such gains are not limited to the children of high-income renters; rather, our results are even stronger when our analysis is limited to the population of economically disadvantaged children.
Fleeting or potent? Evaluating the impact of teachers that convey high expectations on middle school math achievement gains
Joseph Moore & Geoffrey Cohen
Social Psychology of Education, January 2026
Abstract:
Though teacher expectations have been researched for decades, their significance and impact remain topics of debate. Across two studies, we use methodologies designed to address common criticisms of observational research on teacher expectations. In Study 1 (NStudents = 16,176), we use classmates’ perceptions of teacher expectations, while in Study 2, we leverage the random assignment of teachers to classrooms (NSections = 188), to examine how teacher expectations predict students’ math test score gains up to three years later. Employing one of the largest and most diverse datasets ever used in teacher expectations research, we compare the effect size of teacher expectations to key factors known to influence achievement (e.g., socioeconomic status, instructional quality), explore how students’ tendencies to devalue academics mediate these effects, and assess equity in teacher expectations across racial/ethnic groups. Our findings reveal that reflected potential -- a measure of perceived teacher belief in students’ potential -- predicts achievement gains with effect sizes comparable to those of widely recognized educational variables. We also find that this relationship is mediated by a reduced likelihood of students devaluing academics and that students of color receive relatively less reflected potential from their teachers. These results highlight the role of teacher expectations in fostering student achievement.
Welfare Added? Optimal Teacher Assignment with Value-Added Measures
Tanner Eastmond et al.
NBER Working Paper, January 2026
Abstract:
We study how teacher "value added" should inform optimal teacher-assignment policy. Our welfare-theoretic framework illustrates (1) how theoretically optimal assignments leverage variation in teachers' impacts both across student types and across different outcomes, and (2) how empirically optimal assignments trade off improved targeting from estimating richer student heterogeneity against increasing misallocation risk. In practice, optimal assignments use limited student types (only lagged achievement) and multiple outcomes (not just math). Even after correcting for policy overfitting, assignments raise average present-value earnings by $2,800 and increase lower-achieving students' earnings by 70-156% more than benchmark value-added policies that assume that teacher effects are homogeneous across students, that allow for heterogeneous effects across students but for a single subject, or teacher deselection.