The Broad Center believes that research that furthers our understanding of strong K-12 school system management and leadership is rigorous, usable, and sheds light on critical issues faced by education leaders. This page includes research supported by The Broad Center, as well as other key research by Yale SOM faculty touching on dynamics of education system management and leadership.
2024
Interview with Seth Zimmerman, Associate Professor of Economics
Description: College isn’t for everybody—but who is it for? School choice systems are too complicated—so how can they be improved? Yale SOM’s Seth Zimmerman takes on real issues facing students, parents, and schools and uses the tools of economics to offer data-driven answers.
2023
Jayanti Owens | Seeing Behavior as Black, Brown, or White: Teachers’ Racial/Ethnic Bias in Perceptions of Routine Classroom Misbehavior
Abstract: Building on social psychological research on individual bias, this article uses the concept of “perceived blameworthiness” to investigate whether Black and Latino boys are perceived by teachers as being more culpable, or “blameworthy,” than White boys for objectively identical, routine classroom misbehavior at school. To isolate teacher bias from true differences in behavior, I use an original video experiment involving 1,339 teachers in 295 U.S. schools. Teachers in the experiment are randomly assigned to view and respond to a video of a White, Black, or Latino boy committing identical misbehavior. I find that Black boys experience teacher blaming bias, where they are perceived as being more “blameworthy” than White boys for identical misbehavior. Results for Latino boys are directionally similar to those for Black boys but do not reach statistical significance. Findings have implications for racialized assessments of behavior across a range of evaluative contexts.
Read the Full Study | Yale Insights
Barbara Biasi, Julien Lafortune, and David Schonholzer | Effectiveness and Efficiency of School Capital Investments Across the U.S.
Abstract: This paper studies the impact of capital projects on student learning and the real estate market, using nationwide data on U.S. school districts and focusing on what investments work and on whom. We use newly collected data on school capital bonds, test scores, and house prices for 28 U.S. states and a new research design that identifies the causal impact of bond authorizations in the presence of dynamic and heterogeneous treatment effects. On average, bond authorization significantly raises test scores and house prices. Yet, there are large differences across bonds and districts. Spending on infrastructure renovation and upgrades, such as HVAC or roofs, raises test scores but not house prices; conversely, spending on athletic facilities increases house prices but not test scores. Bond authorization is most beneficial in districts with more disadvantaged student populations, in part because these districts prioritize bonds that improve learning. We f ind suggestive evidence that capital funding rules drive differences in bond impacts.
Projects Supported by The Broad Center
In addition to providing support to faculty members who already focus on K-12 education, The Broad Center encourages additional faculty members who study important, related questions around management and leadership to extend into the K-12 education field. These projects were selected from a call for proposals and supported with $25,000 in research funding in the 2024-25 academic year.
Professor Faidra Monachou (Operations), Declining Public School Enrollments: Implications for Equity
Research Description: In recent years, traditional public schools have experienced significant declines in enrollment, associated with an increase in the number of students outside the public education system altogether. It remains unknown whether this changing landscape is disrupting access and equity in education, particularly regarding racial and socioeconomic integration. Our study aims to shed light on the equity implications of declining school enrollments. Using data from state and federal sources, we will characterize the distribution of changes in enrollment and the effects of declined enrollments on racial and socioeconomic representation in schools and districts. We will complement our data findings with insights from structured interviews with district superintendents to gain insights into their strategies for stabilizing enrollment and the challenges they face in implementation.
Professor Song Ma (Finance), Understanding EdTech: Scope, Financing, and Efficacy
Research Description: This project aims to provide a major attempt to understand an important element in modern PK-12 education—education technology (EdTech). EdTech has become an important part of the education system, yet despite its importance, academic research on the scope, financing, and efficacy of EdTech has been limited. We intend to fill this gap by answering two main questions. First, we want to provide an overview of the EdTech landscape using a variety of entrepreneurship databases—what do they do, who are the founders, and how useful do school administrators, teachers, and parents find them to be. Next, we want to dive deeper into the financing and development of these EdTech companies. Education has been mostly financed by the government and public sector, what does it bring to the table if a major part of EdTech financing is done by VC and PE funds? Who should finance the education technology? What are the welfare consequences of private capital involvements?
Professors Thomas Steffen, Anya Nakhmurina, and Raphael Duguay (Accounting): The Impact of Detailed Cost Allocation on School Outcomes under ESSA
Research Description: This project evaluates the consequences of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). It focuses on a provision that requires calculation and reporting of per-pupil spending at the school level. This provision therefore requires school districts to improve their accounting by allocating costs more precisely. The study investigates whether this exercise impacts stakeholder engagement, resource allocation, and ultimately educational outcomes.
Other Education Research
John Eric Humphries, Christopher Neilson, Xiaoyang Ye & Seth D. Zimmerman, Parents' Earnings and the Returns to Universal Pre-Kindergarten
Research Description: This paper asks whether universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) raises parents’ earnings and how much earnings effects matter for evaluating the economic returns to UPK. Using a randomized lottery design, we estimate the effects of enrolling in an extended-day UPK program in New Haven, Connecticut on parents’ labor market outcomes as well as educational expenditures and children’s academic performance. During children’s prekindergarten years, UPK enrollment increases weekly childcare coverage by 11 hours. Enrollment has limited impacts on children’s academic outcomes between kindergarten and 8th grade, likely due to a combination of effect fadeout and substitution away from other programs of similar educational quality. In contrast, UPK enrollment increases parent earnings by 21.7% during pre-kindergarten, and gains persist for at least six years after pre-kindergarten. Gains are largest for middle-income families. Earnings effects for parents have substantial consequences for cost-benefit analysis: tax revenue generated by parents’ income gains reduces the net government cost of UPK by 90% compared to what we would have found without data on parent earnings. Under the conservative assumption that families value UPK at the cost of provision, each dollar of government expenditure on UPK yields $10.04 in benefits. We show that while the benefits of UPK for children per dollar of government expenditure are lower than the benefits of many child-focused policies, the benefits of UPK for adults are high compared to other active labor market policies, and it is gains for adults that generate the high overall returns.