Helen F. Ladd

• PhD
• Professor at Duke University

We examine the North Carolina Pre-K (NC Pre-K) program to test the hypothesis that observed variation in effects resulting from exposure to the program can be attributed to interactions with other environmental factors that occur before, during, or after the pre-k year. We examine student outcomes in 5th grade and test interaction effects between N...

Access to high-quality teachers in K-12 schools differs systematically by racial group. This policy brief reviews the academic research documenting these differences and the labor market forces and segregation patterns that solidify them. It also presents new analysis of differential exposure in North Carolina of White, Black, and Hispanic students...

The decades-long resistance to federally imposed school desegregation entered a new phase at the turn of the new century. At that time, federal courts stopped pushing racial balance as a remedy for past segregation and adopted in its place a color-blind approach to evaluating school district assignment plans. Using data that span 1998 to 2016 from...

Many proponents of charter schools suggest that, by providing an option outside traditional public schools, they are helping disadvantaged students who might otherwise be confined to low-quality neighborhood schools. But market-based accountability structures are insufficient to ensure that charter schools are actually enrolling students (i.e., stu...

This article examines the influence of teacher assistants and other personnel on outcomes for elementary school students during a period of recession-induced cutbacks in teacher assistants. Using panel data from North Carolina, we exploit the state’s unique system of financing its local public schools to identify the causal effects of teacher assis...

Using detailed administrative data for public schools, we document racial and ethnic segregation at the classroom level in North Carolina, a state that has experienced a sharp increase in Hispanic enrollment. We decompose classroom-level segregation in counties into within-school and between-school components. We find that the within-school compone...

We gratefully reply to our five commentators, responding to their criticisms and comments under the following headings: parochialism and curriculum; rationality and truth; production and distribution; perfectionism, decision‐making and disagreement; adultism and parents' interests; non‐consequential educational goods; and self‐education.

This is a brief summary of the book Educational Goods: Values, Evidence, and Decision‐Making by Harry Brighouse, Helen F. Ladd, Susanna Loeb and Adam Swift. It provides the introduction to the present symposium on this book, which includes the ensuing contributions from Carey Bagelman, Randall Curren, Michael Hand, John Tillson and Winston Thompson...

High teacher turnover imposes numerous burdens on the schools and districts from which teachers depart. Some of these burdens are explicit and take the form of recruiting, hiring, and training costs. Others are more hidden and take the form of changes to the composition and quality of the teaching staff. This study focuses on the latter. We ask how...

Support for policies to improve early childhood educational development and reduce disparities grew rapidly this century but recently has wavered because of findings that program effects might fade out prematurely. Two programs implemented at scale in North Carolina (Smart Start and More at Four) have been associated with academic success early in...

In this article, based on their book Educational Goods: Values, Evidence and Decision Making, Harry Brighouse, Helen Ladd, Susanna Loeb, and Adam Swift encourage education decision makers to give careful thought to the values that underlie the data they collect and use to inform policy. Rather than basing decisions entirely on what improves academi...

Abstract. High teacher turnover imposes numerous costs on the schools and districts from which teachers depart. This study asks how schools respond to spells of high teacher turnover, and assesses organizational and human capital losses in terms of the changing composition of the teacher pool. Our analysis uses more than two decades of linked admin...

A significant criticism of the charter school movement is that funding for charter schools diverts money away from traditional public schools. The magnitude of such adverse fiscal externalities depends in part on the nature of state and local funding policies. In this paper, we examine the fiscal effects of charter schools on both urban and nonurba...

Based on growing evidence of the long-term benefits of enriched early childhood experiences, we evaluate the potential for addressing gender disparities in elementary school through early care and education programs. Specifically, we explore the community-wide effects of two statewide initiatives in North Carolina on gender differences in academic...

We explore the effects of a statewide policy change that increased the number of high school math courses required for admission to four-year public universities in North Carolina. Using data on cohorts of eighth-grade students from 1999 to 2006, we exploit variation by district over time in the math course-taking environment encountered by student...

This chapter introduces three distributive values relating to education: equality, adequacy, and benefiting the less advantaged; and introduces independent values -- such as childhood goods, and freedom of choice of residence and occupation -- which should be taken into account when making decisions about educational policy and practice.

This chapter explains the idea of an achievement gap, and surveys the data available on how achievement is, in fact, distributed across various demographic groups. It also explores the place of the concept of achievement -- understood narrowly as performance on certain kinds of tests -- in the broader concept of educational goods.

This chapter outlines a process for responsibly combining values and evidence in educational decision-making: decision makers should identify the values in play, the key decisions relative to those values, assess the options in the light of the evidence and values, and establish the best policy in the circumstances.

This chapter introduces the idea of educational goods, and breaks these goods down into six capacities: the capacities for economic productivity, personal autonomy, democratic competence, healthy personal relationships, treating others as equals, and personal fulfillment. It argues that these capacities must be developed in order for individuals to...

This chapter looks at questions around school choice, and focuses particularly on charter schools and similar reform ideas. Three central questions are considered. Should policy makers deliberately keep the charter school sector small relative to the number of traditional public schools? Should most of the regulations that apply to public schools b...

This chapter illustrates the decision-making process by looking at three key decisions concerning financing: Should the central policy makers provide more funds to certain local governments than to others to compensate for differences in the cost of schooling or the needs of students? If so, how much more? Should local governments be allowed to sup...

The conclusion emphasizes the main themes of the book. The book aims to enrich the language and conceptual resources used by educational decision-makers; to alert decision-makers to difficult value trade-offs and help them think rigorously about them; and to help them understand better how careful consideration of values can improve the process of...

This chapter explores controversies about school accountability in the light of the values elaborated earlier in the book. It focuses on two questions: Should they impose some form of administrative accountability? If so, for what should they hold schools accountable: student outcomes or internal school policies and practices?

As policy makers call for the dramatic expansion of school choice and voucher programs across the U.S., it becomes all the more important for educators and advocates to consider lessons learned in countries – such as the Netherlands, New Zealand, and England – that have already gone down this path. Efforts to promote choice and school self-governan...

We study the evolution of a campus-based aid program for low-income students that began with grant-heavy financial aid and later added a suite of nonfinancial supports. We find little to no evidence that program eligibility during the early years (2004–2006), in which students received additional institutional grant aid and few nonfinancial support...

This paper examines the effect of a federally supported school turnaround program in North Carolina elementary and middle schools. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the turnaround program did not improve, and may have reduced, average school-level passing rates in math and reading. One potential contributor to that finding appea...

In this paper we examine how failing to make adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and the accountability pressure that ensues, affects various non-achievement student behaviors. Using administrative data from North Carolina and leveraging a discontinuity in the determination of school failure, we examine the causal impact of...

We use rich longitudinally matched administrative data on students and teachers in North Carolina to examine the patterns of differential effectiveness by teachers’ years of experience. The paper contributes to the literature by focusing on middle school teachers and by extending the analysis to student outcomes beyond test scores. Once we control...

North Carolina's Smart Start and More at Four (MAF) early childhood programs were evaluated through the end of elementary school (age 11) by estimating the impact of state funding allocations to programs in each of 100 counties across 13 consecutive years on outcomes for all children in each county-year group (n = 1,004,571; 49% female; 61% non-Lat...

A defining characteristic of charter schools is that they introduce a strong market element into public education. In this paper, we examine the evolution of the charter school sector in North Carolina between 1999 and 2012 through the lens of a market model. We examine trends in the mix of students enrolled in charter schools, the racial imbalance...

This article articulates a framework suitable for use when making decisions about education policy. Decision makers should establish what the feasible options are and evaluate them in terms of their contribution to the development, and distribution, of educational goods in children, balanced against the negative effect of policies on important inde...

The proportion of students taking a first algebra course in middle school has doubled over the past generation and there have been calls to make eighth grade algebra universal. We use significant policy shifts in the timing of algebra in two large North Carolina districts to infer the impact of accelerated entry into algebra on student performance...

This study examines the community-wide effects of investments in two early childhood initiatives in North Carolina (Smart Start and More at Four) on the likelihood of a student being placed into special education. We take advantage of variation across North Carolina counties and years in the timing of the introduction and funding levels of the two...

The proportion of students taking a first algebra course in middle school has doubled over the past generation and there have been calls to make eighth grade algebra universal. We use significant policy shifts in the timing of algebra in two large North Carolina districts to infer the impact of accelerated entry into algebra on student performance...

In this paper we examine how failing to make adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and the accountability pressure that ensues, affects various non-achievement student behaviors. Using administrative data from North Carolina and leveraging a discontinuity in the determination of school failure, we examine the causal impact of...

This study examines the community-wide effects of two statewide early childhood policy initiatives in North Carolina. One initiative provides funding to improve the quality of child care services at the county level for all children between the ages of 0 to 5, and the other provides funding for preschool slots for disadvantaged four-year-olds. Diff...

This article contributes to the empirical literature on remediation in community colleges by using policy variation across North Carolina’s community colleges to examine how remediation affects various outcomes for traditional-age college students. We find that being required to take a remedial course (as we define it in this article) either in mat...

Community colleges are complex organizations and assessing their performance, though important, is difficult. Compared to 4-year colleges and universities, community colleges serve a more diverse population and provide a wider variety of educational programs that include continuing education and technical training for adults, and diplomas, associat...

We use North Carolina data to explore whether the quality of teachers in the lower elementary grades (K-2) falls short of teacher quality in the upper grades (3-5) and to examine the hypothesis that school accountability pressures contribute to such quality shortfalls. Our concern with the early grades arises from recent studies highlighting how ch...

I enrolled in my first economics course in 1963, my freshman year at Wellesley College, which was then, and still is, only for women. On the first day of class, my thirty freshman classmates and I eagerly awaited the arrival of our teacher. When she entered the classroom, she immediately announced that, as the chair of the department, she got to ch...

This paper examines the effects of policies that increase the number of students who take the first course in algebra in 8th grade, rather than waiting until 9th grade. Extending previous research that focused on the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school system, we use data for the 10 largest districts in North Carolina. We identify the effects of accelerat...

Since 1990, Latin American immigrants to the United States have dispersed beyond traditional gateway regions to a number of "new destinations." Both theory and past empirical evidence provide mixed guidance as to whether the children of these immigrants are adversely affected by residing in a nontraditional destination. This study uses administrati...

abstract: The proportion of students taking a first algebra course in middle school has doubled over the past generation and there have been calls to make eighth grade algebra universal. We use significant policy shifts in the timing of algebra in two large North Carolina districts to infer the impact of accelerated entry into algebra on student pe...

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers, and the promotion of competition are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school th...

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers, and the promotion of competition are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school th...

efforts to make its education system more equitable and democratic. The larger project was supported by a Fulbright grant to Helen Ladd that enabled the two authors to spend 6 months at the University of Cape Town in 2002. The authors are extremely grateful to the Fulbright Association, to the Department of Economics at the University of Cape Town...

Research has consistently shown that teacher quality is distributed very unevenly among schools, to the clear disadvantage of minority students and those from low-income families. Using North Carolina data on the length of time individual teachers remain in their schools, we examine the potential for using salary differentials to overcome this patt...

This quantitative study examines the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their working conditions and their intended and actual departures from schools. Based on rich administrative data for North Carolina combined with a 2006 statewide survey administered to all teachers in the state, the study documents that working conditions are highl...

Although a relatively new idea in the U.S., weighted student funding (WSF) for individual schools has a long history in the Netherlands. This country of about 16.5 million people has been using a version of WSF for all its primary schools (serving children from age 4 to 12) for 25 years. In this article we describe and evaluate the Dutch system and...

This article details the rationales behind school accountability systems and discusses the mechanisms through which these systems could improve student achievement in the impacted schools. Although school accountability systems provide incentives for increased test performance, they can also have unintended consequences, and the design of such acco...

Does differential access to computer technology at home compound the educational disparities between rich and poor? Would a program of government provision of computers to early secondary school students reduce these disparities? We use administrative data on North Carolina public school students to corroborate earlier surveys that document broad r...

The Netherlands' centralized school funding, long-term stability of education policies, and extensive social services contribute to its success. Weighted student funding might not translate well into the U.S. system.

Thomas Dee and Brian Jacob provide a review of existing empirical studies on how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has affected student achievement. They also present original findings based on a difference-in-differences comparison of states that implemented school accountability only with NCLB and those that had implemented it previously. The differenc...

The United States is an outlier with respect to its heavy emphasis on student test scores for the purposes of school accountability. Many other countries instead use school inspection systems that pay more attention to a school's internal processes and practices. This policy note focuses on the school inspection systems of New Zealand and the Nethe...

We use data on statewide end-of-course tests in North Carolina to examine the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement at the high school level. We find compelling evidence that teacher credentials, particularly licensure and certification, affects student achievement in systematic ways and that the magnitudes are large enou...

Although the federal No Child Left Behind program judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a 10-year student-level panel data set from North Carolina, we examine how school-specific pressure assoc...

The controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) brought test-based school accountability to scale across the United States. This study draws together results from multiple data sources to identify how the new accountability systems developed in response to NCLB have influenced student achievement, school-district finances, and measures of school...

Policy makers and educators in the U.S. have recently shown considerable interest in the concept of weighted student funding (WSF) as a means of financing primary and secondary schools. WSF appeals both to conservatives, who see it as a way to promote parental choice and school autonomy, and to progressives, who are attracted by the call for extra...

Using student-level data from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the potential impact of school choice programs on the peer environments of students who remain in their geographically assigned schools. We examine whether the likelihood of opting out of one's geographically assigned school differs across groups and compare the actual peer compositio...

Using detailed data from North Carolina, we examine the frequency, incidence, and consequences of teacher absences in public schools as well as the impact of a policy designed to reduce absences. The incidence of teacher absences is regressive: when schools are ranked by the fraction of students receiving free or reduced price lunches, teachers in...

The Netherlands has a long history of parental choice and school autonomy. This paper examines why segregation by educational disadvantage has only recently emerged as a policy issue in the Netherlands. In addition, we document the levels and trends of school segregation in Dutch cities. We find segregation levels that are high both absolutely and...

This report is based on research completed while we were visiting researchers at the University of Amsterdam from January to June, 2009. We thank Duke University for providing sabbatical support to Helen Ladd and the economics department at the University of Amsterdam for hosting our visit. We are grateful to Kristen Manderscheid from Duke Universi...

Within the context of the school finance literature, the concepts of equity and adequacy raise a number of complex definitional and pragmatic issues. The purpose of this article is to clarify those issues and to use those concepts to evaluate the recent policy proposal called weighted student funding (WSF). Though WSF contains some equity-enhancing...

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on the peer environments of students who remain in their geographically assigned school. We examine whether the likelihood of opting out of one's geographically assigned school differs across groups and compare the peer composition in neighborhood schools to...

For a three-year time period beginning in 2001, North Carolina awarded an annual bonus of $1800 to certified math, science and special education teachers working in public secondary schools with either high-poverty rates or low test scores. Using longitudinal data on teachers, we estimate hazard models that identify the impact of this differential...

no abstract available.

The availability of administrative data on teachers and students has greatly enhanced the ability of researchers to address research topics related to the effectiveness of teachers. Such data permit the researcher to use the student as the unit of observation, to follow students over time, and in many cases to match students with their specific tea...

Using detailed administrative data for the public K-12 schools of North Carolina, we measure racial segregation in the public schools of North Carolina. With data for the 2005/06 school year, we update previously published calculations that measure segregation in terms of unevenness in racial enrollment patterns both between schools and within scho...

This paper examines school-related policies and strategies that have been proposed or justified, at least in part, on the basis of their potential for reducing black-white test score gaps. These include strategies, one of which is greater integration, to reduce differences in the quality of teachers faced by black and white students; school and cla...

Between 2001 and 2004, the state of North Carolina gave an annual salary bonus of $1,800 to certified math, science, and special education teachers in a set of low-performing and/or high-poverty secondary schools. Eligible teachers were to continue receiving the bonus as long as they continued in the school. In a survey of teachers and principals,...

We use a rich administrative dataset from North Carolina to explore questions related to the relationship between teacher characteristics and credentials on the one hand and student achievement on the other. Though the basic questions underlying this research are not new—and, indeed, have been explored in many papers over the years within the rubri...

Using panel data that track individual students from year to year, we examine the effects of charter schools in North Carolina on racial segregation and black-white test score gaps. We find that North Carolina's system of charter schools has increased the racial isolation of both black and white students, and has widened the achievement gap. Moreov...

We use data on statewide end-of-course tests in North Carolina to examine the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement at the high school level. The availability of test scores in multiple subjects for each student permits us to estimate a model with student fixed effects, which helps minimize any bias associated with the no...

Using detailed data from North Carolina, we examine the frequency, incidence, and consequences of teacher absences in public schools, as well as the impact of an absence disincentive policy. The incidence of teacher absences is regressive: schools in the poorest quartile averaged almost one extra sick day per teacher than schools in the highest inc...

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between studen...

Education researchers and policy makers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data s...

Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world's industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries—an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly, that...

Administrative data on fifth grade students in North Carolina shows that more highly qualified teachers tend to be matched with more advantaged students, both across schools and in many cases within them. This matching biases estimates of the relationship between teacher characteristics and achievement; we isolate this bias in part by focusing on s...

Recent discussions of school choice have revived arguments that the decentralization of governing institutions can enhance the quality of public services by increasing the participation of intended beneficiaries in the production of those services. We use data from the Schools and Staffing Survey to examine the extent to which the decentralization...

Abstract, graphs, tabl., bibl. A major task of South Africa's new government in 1994 was to design a more racially equitable education system. This article evaluates progress towards this goal using three concepts of equity: equal treatment by race, equal educational opportunity, and educational adequacy. The authors find that the country moved qui...