If you want to read just an absolutely joyful celebration of teachers' work, check out this amazing study of students' perspectives on special education teaching quality, by @hannahmmathews.bsky.social, Audrey Milam, Flo Bason, & Maria Giani! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

I am excited to share that I was selected as a 2026 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow! Thank you to my mentors at UC Irvine for guiding me throughout this process. I look forward to continuing my dissertation work on special education policy and learning from the fantastic NAEd/Spencer community.

Wealthy students are more likely to get disability accommodations, study finds www.the74million.org/article/weal...

Very thoughtful coverage of our work on family income and disability identification in K-12 schools by Kevin Mahnken in @the74.bsky.social. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Check out the piece below! www.the74million.org/article/weal...

I've got a new report out about school district finances in California. It's part of the massive Getting Down to Facts III project out of the SCALE Initiative at Stanford University, and an update of my similar report in 2018. gettingdowntofacts.com/reports/dist...

Wow, brings me back.

Interested in some highlights from our latest paper about the effects of Ethnic Studies while it scales district-wide? Our friends at EdWorkingPapers have you covered. edworkingpapers.com/policy-pract...

In “Net Worth Poverty in Childhood,” Gibson-Davis, @lisagennetian.bsky.social et al. use @umpsid.bsky.social data to examine the “role of wealth deprivation across a child’s life course” & assoc. w/ HS graduation & college attendance. @duke-university.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...

New working paper alert! Our team developed a web crawler to study the accessibility of information related to special education on school district websites in four states (MA, RI, IN, and FL). Read the full WP here: edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1447 And check out Cam's thread below for more detail!

Vanderbilt seeks a Postdoctoral Scholar to support two grant-funded initiatives: the Improvement Scholars Network & the Network Health Project. Focuses on advancing improvement research & studying the development and effectiveness of education improvement networks. www.vanderbilt.edu/postdoc/pros...

It’s a good thing when education policy ideas can garner big, bipartisan constituencies. Such reforms are more durable, widespread, and amenable to reflective, iterative updating. We should pursue and celebrate them. But… 1/5

If any other intervention produced outcomes of this size - GPA improvements of .24SD & reductions in course failure of .14SD - districts would be desperate to implement it. Instead, because ethnic studies has been labeled as "woke," efforts to scale have slowed.

Some good news: SFUSD's high school Ethnic Studies course has substantial academic benefits when implemented district-wide. New research by @birajbisht.bsky.social, Sade Bonilla, Grace Kim, and myself just out today in @aeraedresearch.bsky.social 🧵 doi.org/10.3102/0002...

Delighted to share our revised paper (w/ @juliaturner.bsky.social & @jacobbastian.bsky.social ) showing that Universal Pre-K has broad effects on local labor markets — effects well beyond only mothers. Larger effects for full-day programs. nber.org/papers/w33767 #EconSky #EarlyChildhood #ECE

Really interesting paper on the impacts of special education services on student achievement. Huge effects! There is a lot to dig into here. Check out the thread and give the paper a read!

New paper: Morocco's Pioneer Middle Schools—a government-led whole-school reform—improved socioemotional skills, tripled year-on-year learning, reduced dropout ~1/3. "Beyond Basics" w/ Campos Quintero, El Amrani Mida, Glewwe, Kumar, and Lépine de-barros.com/publication/... @cega-uc.bsky.social

IncreasED: How Court Rulings Impact Special Education Identification journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3...

The “big beautiful bill” greatly expanded SNAP work requirements for parents In my paper with @jasonbcook.bsky.social, forthcoming at JPUBE, we ask what similar, existing requirements do SNAP work requirements for parents deny vulnerable parents SNAP benefits and do not increase their employment

POSTDOC OPENING! We are hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow for a mixed-methods project aimed at supporting and researching implementation of high-quality preschool curricula. The position is 1-2 years and can be in person or remote. More details here: edpolicy.umich.edu/what-we-do/j...

SPARC Center experts are presenting at #AEFP2026 this week! Sessions are in the thread below, with 💥indicating sessions related to #SpecialEducation:`

New paper on skill formation, with evidence from Zambia's foundational skills program (Teaching at the Right Level / Catch Up) Targeting Foundational Skills at Scale: Skill Specificity and Transfer w/ T. Lubozha Preprint & brief de-barros.com/publication/... Also @cesifo.org @cega-uc.bsky.social

@mattbarnum.bsky.social of @chalkbeat.org highlights our research about the relationship between students’ gifted and special education identification and family income. Higher income -> gifted education Lower income -> special education There’s a lot to ponder about why this happens.

Glad to see our work about special ed and gifted identification across the income distribution appear in this week's @chalkbeat.org

Yep these numbers are incredibly striking. Full newsletter is here with additional tidbits on AI-cheating, state funding effort, and "zero-percent proficient" schools. cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/chalkbeat-...

A stunning (yet unsurprising) graph of who gets identified for special versus gifted education in Oregon. Graph reported by @mattbarnum.bsky.social.

Out today, a short and accessible policy and practice summary of our new working paper "Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable?" Via the @annenberginstitute.bsky.social edworkingpapers.com/policy-pract...

Useful explainer on the crisis of the rising costs of childcare. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/u...

Family income shapes educational opportunities: Students with disabilities edition. And, as we've said before, FRPM won't tell you the full story. Led by the wonderful @nick-ainsworth.bsky.social. See his thread for more details, a WP link, and our co-author team.

Excited to share a new EdWorkingPaper on the relationship between family income and disability ID. 🧵 TLDR: Low-income students are much more likely to receive SPED services while high-income students are more likely to get 504 plan accommodations. edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1374

Why do educational intervention impacts fade? Isn't catch-up a good thing? Are sleeper effects real? Does fadeout mean failure? @drewhalbailey.bsky.social, Tyler Watts, and I address these questions & more in an EdNext piece & 4 new working papers! www.educationnext.org/why-do-most-...

Check out our new EdWorkingPaper on the relationship between family income and gifted identification. Thanks for sharing, David!

I’m really glad to see that our paper is now out at Ed Researcher! We examine turnover among the half of school employees who are not teachers to understand how their turnover compares. Using Oregon data (2007-23) for all public school employees, there are 3 new patterns that we document: A 🧵

📣 Adding to the momentum behind #UniversalChildcare: 2 new reports👇looking at California's #childcare crisis and detailing reforms that would help make childcare a lot more affordable in the state. #EarlyChildhood #ChildcareCrisis #CareEconomy #EconSky

ICYMI! What are working conditions? Check out our RASE paper to see how we define them & why!

WIC reduces birth weight disparities between black and white babies. www.nber.org/papers/w34521

@lmasonwms.bsky.social & @afgilmour.bsky.social presenting year 1 SPARC center findings in Washington 1 right now- variability in the nature of the challenges facing the special ed workforce across states! Check out our year 1 working paper at sparccenter.org

New research on #SpecialEducation Personnel Attrition with PA Dept. of Ed shows: ➡️Admins leave more than teachers ➡️Higher attrition among Black educators, urban settings, and more diverse districts ➡️Retention must be role- & context-specific Learn more: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Our researchers recently hosted a webinar on the challenges of identifying #SpecialEducation teachers in state longitudinal data systems (#SLDS). Scroll through some of our initial learnings from our first year analyzing data and stay tuned for a working paper with these results.

New analysis of census data finds LGBTQ folks are underrepresented in teaching: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3...

This is an AWESOME webinar for anyone interested in learning about how to use state longitudinal data systems to study the special education teacher workforce! Researchers, doc students, state data folks - come join us!

New @caldercenter.bsky.social WP! A study from my dissertation, w/ @roddy-theobald.bsky.social, @natejones.bsky.social‬, & @lizbettini.bsky.social. We find staff turnover matters for SWDs. Ungated WP & one pager: • Working paper: tinyurl.com/j3rykkp9 • One-pager: tinyurl.com/bddtzxtp

The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) 2025 conference is October 8-11 in Chicago! The Special education section would love your submissions & participation. Abstracts due 4/1! Thanks for considering submitting & sharing with your networks! #SREE2025 @sreesociety.bsky.social

Hi everyone! The Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt University is searching for a Chair and Professor to join our faculty in the summer of 2026. Please share with your networks and happy to chat with anyone interested! jobs.chronicle.com/job/37806156...

Thanks to everyone who attended #AEFP2025 and safe travels home! We're thinking about how to support members in the year ahead. Feel free to reach out with suggestions, or you can provide ideas on the post-conference survey.

What an honor to be part of this incredible crew. There's so much active policymaking right now, focused on the challenges facing the special ed workforce. We need research to identify which investments are worth it-thanks to IES for investing in that research. Check out our website! sparccenter.org

What a fantastic resource for evidence-based policymaking!! Thanks to everyone at AEFP who put this together!

It's come on and offline since, but.... download what you need ASAP

New from me in Education Finance & Policy: Pandemic-Era School Staff Shortages: Evidence from Unfilled Position Data in Illinois doi.org/10.1162/edfp...

SUBMISSION DEADLINE for our special issue of JREE focused on using longitudinal data to address questions related to disability & education. Please submit or reach out before February 1: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

🔈new publication alert! I started this project 7 years ago as a PhD student. It's an extension of my dissertation, and the last of that work to be published (so this feels especially worthy of celebrating). Coauthored w/ former colleagues. 1/n journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...