A new Economics of Education Research Centre (EERC) — run by CEPEO, @cep-lse.bsky.social and @theifs.bsky.social — has been awarded a ~£3m DfE contract to build the evidence base on economic and social returns to education and skills, from early years to post-16. www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants/...

I have a new working paper out today, looking at the impact of educational use of ChatGPT/AI on student test scores. Importantly, this is overall student-led use (incl for cheating!), not specialized AI tutoring tools. To my surprise, I found... no effect at all! arxiv.org/abs/2605.08812

Good data is essential for policy. Today it’s been a year since we had a permanent National Statistician. No news on what is happening with the current recruitment which began Oct 2025. This is an under the bonnet issue that points to state failure 🧵 uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/news/stateme...

📢WE'RE HIRING! 1 pre-doc and 1 post-doc position, both until 31 March 2028 initially. We're a super friendly multi-disciplinary team, though these positions have a strong economics focus. Closing date 20th May. Please share widely! Pre-doc: tinyurl.com/3t75je4a Post-doc: tinyurl.com/ycyrzaxp

New findings out today from @theeef.bsky.social on the impacts of setting cf. mixed attainment in early secondary maths. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

New data alert! 🚨 Our #LEARNineq team at UCL CEPEO is diving into the latest wave of the Millennium Cohort Study. Tracking UK people born in 2000, it looks at changes in education, work, health & families to help tackle educational inequality. Learn more: cls.ucl.ac.uk/millennium-c...

📢 Upcoming seminar (UCL CEPEO Spring Series 2026) Revisiting the 'Dominance Approach': An appropriate measure of social origin for those born in Great Britain during the 1950s–1980s? 🎤 Dr Michael Vallely (University of Strathclyde) 📅 30 April 2026 ⏰ 3pm (UK) 🔗 Join us: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

If you're a current or recent PhD student based in London and using quantitative methods...we're currently recruiting TAs for next year, get in touch!

This is excellent from @samfr.bsky.social Why saving universities is far more than academic observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Why do we still run marathons even though it is much quicker to get a train or taxi? Why should we learn to write even though it is much quicker to get the LLM to do it for us? Sometimes the aim of doing something is to do it. There is no shortcut. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/what-is-th...

This would be bad at any time, but while the government is talking g about an AI revolution and automating / digitising the state with a data revolution etc, it's absolutely insane. Statistics are at the bedrock of all of this stuff.

How did you get this footage of me?

Considering using Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data in your research? Seems daunting? CEPEO, funded by @adr-uk.bsky.social, are working with DfE to help! Presenting a synthetic version of LEO to download & explore today: datacatalogue.ukdataservice.ac.uk/studies/stud...

Still time to register and join me for an introduction to some of the practicalities of doing youth transitions research using administrative data tomorrow lunchtime Registration link below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

A postdoc position is now available in my project Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity. Start date flexible within the next 12 months, apply by 9 May. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

📢📢 interested in doing research on youth transitions using adminstrative data? 📢📢 join our very own @jakeanders.uk who will be giving a practical introduction to exactly that next tuesday (14/04) online sign up for the webinar here: zoom.us/webinar/regi... @adruk.bsky.social community catalyst

May I interest you in £10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June. We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

The government has announced a cap of 6% interest on plan 2 and 3 student loan interest ahead of the publication of the March RPI inflation figure, which is used to set interest rates for the following academic year. Who will benefit? [1/5]

No relation

New in @europeansocreview.bsky.social with brilliant @kostermann.bsky.social & @patzinaalex.bsky.social 🌟 Apprenticeship dropout is known to be associated with €€€ penalties, but less clear whether dropout causes later income losses. Matters for policy: what should interventions target?

Maybe these need to be put on a few menus/supermarket walls. These are from the UK National Food Strategy, showing the proportion of UK land used for different things (huge for beef/lamb, tiny for crops), & where we get our calories and protein (68% & 52% from plants). The difference is staggering.

The long-awaited Schools White Paper, “Every child achieving and thriving,” arrived yesterday with lots to digest. At the UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities, we study how policy can reduce inequality and improve life chances. Here are 5 takeaways from CEPEO 👇

Structural Equation Modeling [2026, colourized] #rstats

What a timewaster Microsoft 365 Copilot is (a 2 act play, edited for brevity). Me: Could you help me set up a scheduling poll? Copilot: Just let me know your availability! Me: Can you see my calendar? Copilot: I can definitely read your calendar and do this automatically — if you grant permission.

📣A journal article from the COSMO Study's @jakeanders.uk and @ericaholtwhite.bsky.social has been published in Social Indicators Research! The article uses COSMO data to highlight inequalities in young people’s subjective wellbeing and mental health in the wake of the pandemic 🧵

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

Where in the world does typical teacher professional development address educational inequity? Out now w/ Nils Kirsten and Jan-Eric Gustafsson! And since Bluesky seems to like econometrics, the #OA study uses a within-student-between-subject approach :) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Great new book out edited by @mcazaola.bsky.social on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on education, focusing on learning disruption and recovery from that disruption. www.bloomsbury.com/9781350520523

You can read the full results from this paper now that they have, indeed, forthcome (open access for all to see!) in Social Indicators Research here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We are pleased to announce the first Economic Opportunity in Europe Conference, co-organized by @oppinsights.bsky.social, Sciences Po and @labdeoportunidades.bsky.social Paris, France | Jun 15–16, 2026 | Keynote: Raj Chetty Sub deadline: March 1 🔗More Info: opportunityinsights.org/updates/econ...

Interested in applying for a research fellowship using admin datasets, like the National Pupil Database and LEO? Have a look at this blog for some guidance on how to shape your proposal. vist.ly/4nvpw

Today, we celebrate the 80th year of the @um-src.bsky.social at ISR by launching a new web panel starting Fall 2026. It is called M-Panel and will be collecting a national sample representative of the U.S.

School accountability (in the US) had positive effects on various attainments, with little evidence for teaching to the test, economists find. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Highlighting some of our findings from COSMO Wave 2 — which you can download and use for your analysis from @ukdataservice.bsky.social

New post by @jakeanders.uk on @ukdsimpact.bsky.social highlights some things we've learned from Wave 2 of COSMO (our study with @clscohorts.bsky.social & @suttontrust.bsky.social). blog.ukdataservice.ac.uk/cosmo-wave-2/ You can download and use all the COSMO data from @ukdataservice.bsky.social

Dog* * Terms & conditions apply.

Last call for this as a) it’s almost full and b) we have to send the list of attendees very early in the year so registration will close either way!

Great quiz! I didn’t do quite as well, with a couple of silly mistakes… I scored 65% on the Centre for British Progress Big British Progress Quiz of the Year! ⭐ 🟩 🟩🟥 🟥🟥🟩 🟩🟥🟧🟩 🟩🟩🟧 🪵 quizzes.britishprogress.org/quiz/christm...

Not on my watch — I am doubling down on em-dash use.

This is just madness

On Bondi Beach today: the belongings of people who ran away in the chaos of yesterday’s shooting, in case they come back to claim them Including tiny shoes and toys of the kids

🎄 CEPEO Xmas Seminar 🎄 Human Capital Spillovers in the United Kingdom 🗣️ Dr Fabien Petit (University of Barcelona) 📍 Room G06A, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP 🗓️ Thursday 11 December ⏰ 2 pm (UK time) 🔗 Register here: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #CEPEOSeminarSeries

Want to know more about using UCAS data to research transitions to HE (and delay the return to your desk in Jan!)? Join us in person at the Department for Education in London for a research showcase with @adruk.bsky.social 🕕Tues 6th Jan, 10.30am-4pm Register: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1977270535...

The ONS research excellence awards took place yesterday. @jakeanders.uk co-authored work on the impact of free schools which won the People's Choice Award and Claire Crawford worked with @theifs.bsky.social on the Sure Start evaluation which won the Impact of Analysis Award. Congratulations!

We’re recruiting an Evaluation Officer (12-month maternity cover) to support our work in building strong evidence on what improves widening participation & student success. Salary: £37,474 App deadline: 8 December 2025, 09:00 GMT Find out more and apply: taso.org.uk/vacancy/eval...

Join and help to lead the Constitution Unit! @uclspp.bsky.social is looking for a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics who will also join our senior team and contribute to our research and impact activities. Applicants must have, or be near to finishing, a PhD. Apply 👇

Why do people choose to become teachers? Rigorous new evidence on this vital question for our education system in a new CEPEO working paper out today by @drsamsims.bsky.social & @clareroutledge.bsky.social econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...

The government's opportunity mission set the goal of reaching 75% of children having a good level of development when starting school by 2028. It's good to see this has now reached 68.3%, up 0.6%pts from last year, but still a way to go.

There's still time to register for this week's CEPEO seminar! We are hosting Dr Judith Delaney from University of Bath who will presenting work on the effect of university grade inflation on graduate outcomes REGISTER NOW: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...