Meredith Bachman

Attending school is critical for student success, yet in low-income communities a quarter of all young students are chronically absent (defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days). One potentially cost-effective way to improve attendance is to text message parents, providing basic information about the importance of students being in school, tips for getting to school, and personalized alerts when students are absent and then adapting or intensifying messages for families that continue

Decades of educational reforms have demonstrated that turning around the lowest-performing schools in the U.S. remains a complex challenge. To address perceived shortcomings in prior federal law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 provided new rules and regulations, as well as some new flexibilities, for how states identify their lowest performing schools and then assist and hold them accountable. This nationwide study examines which schools have been identified as those needing com

Teacher residency programs are rapidly increasing in popularity, as a potential way to address persistent inequities in student access to high quality teachers. This form of teacher preparation combines coursework with extensive on-the-job training in schools under the guidance of experienced mentors. The programs also typically place new graduates in hard-to-staff positions, most often in the same low-income or lower-performing districts where they trained. This approach may be promising, as

Following two rigorous evaluations examining <em>if</em> the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) works, there remains interest in understanding how it works. The only federally funded private school voucher program in the country, the OSP expands the set of school options available to low-income students in Washington, DC. However, the OSP is experiencing competition for students from a growing public-school choice sector. This third congressionally-mandated evaluation of the program will

Decades after the Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, concentration in schools by race, ethnicity, and poverty persists. The federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) supports districts and schools in their efforts to reduce group isolation and improve student achievement through increased school choice options for families. MSAP schools seek to attract a diverse set of students and provide high quality academic programs, typically by orga

School choice has increased dramatically in recent years, with the goal of providing parents the opportunity to selects those schools that best meet their families' needs. For school choice to work well, parents need to be able to understand and make use of information about the school characteristics they value most, such as where schools are located, academic performance, available resources, and safety. However, surveys suggest families struggle with the school choice information provided b