Lucy Sorensen

A US map visualizes student loan debt data by county, color-coded to show levels of debt among white communities and communities of color. Accompanying charts detail median student loan debt and delinquency rates, with additional statistics on bachelor’s degree attainment and income. The page header includes filters for different types of debt: "All Debt," "Medical," "Student," and "Auto/Retail.

Rising #studentloan debt and delinquencies are worsening Americans’ concerns about #affordability and the cost of living. Explore Urban’s Debt in America map with state-level #data on young adults’ credit card, medical, student loan, and auto/retail debt. https://urbn.is/47QG7EP

School discipline disparities increase when neighborhood Black population changes Racial suspensions gaps grew from 2010 to 2018, especially in white neighborhoods and rural areas with shifting Black populations.

Many school discipline reforms aimed to reduce racial disparities, but we find they worked unevenly. Black–White gaps declined mainly in urban neighborhoods and persisted or grew elsewhere.

Check out the article here: doi.org/10.1126/scia...

New Science Advances paper w/ Jennifer Candipan:

Racial change doesn’t just reshape neighborhoods, it reshapes school punishment. We show Black–White suspension disparities grow in places where Black populations are changing, especially in majority White, suburban, & rural areas.

Very cool opportunity for early career researchers interested in special education research:

Apply for access to at least one statewide longitudinal dataset with support from SPARC researchers to conduct a co-developed study on the special education workforce. sparccenter.org/sparc-center...

🚨New research looks at early impacts of MA’s free community college policies. Early evidence suggests expanded access & a reshaping of who shows up on campus.

Full brief ➡️ bit.ly/wepcmassreco...

@joshua-goodman.com, @doughesm.bsky.social, Morgan Fleming, Yunee H. Yoon
@buwheelock.bsky.social

Title page for "Raising the Floor: Teacher Retention Effects of a Statewide Minimum Salary Increase"

Histograms showing the increase in teacher salaries for beginning teachers and teachers with 5 years of experience. These figures show a large increase in salaries while also showing substantial compression, indicating that pay differentials between districts shrunk.

What happens when you shrink salary differences between districts, increase beginning teacher pay by over $10,000, and compress salary schedules?

@gzamarro.bsky.social, @jbmcgee.bsky.social, @taylornwilson.bsky.social, Miranda Vernon, and I find out in our new CALDER working paper: bit.ly/4l4b5hO

". . . While we must ardently pursue and realize progress on the systemic changes needed to fully remove barriers to regular school attendance, our work positions school climate as a lever that educators can operate to move the needle on absenteeism . . ."

Shows in graph negative association between different measures of school climate and percent of students chronically absent

Shows conceptual framework of out-of-school factors, within-school factors, school climate, individual/institutional factors, that influence chronic absenteeism

Great new read on school climate and chronic absenteeism from Jerome Graham, Yi-Chih Chiang, Su-Yon Choi: shorturl.at/ZF5Lg

Expanding school counseling: The impacts of California funding changes Counselors are a common school resource for students navigating complicated and consequential education choices, but most students have limited access…

me and @cmulhern.bsky.social's paper on school counselors is out in econ of ed review

We find more funding for counselors in California in the 2000s increased grad rates, college enrollment & school climate

in short: counselors improve student outcomes and we should invest more in them!

Revolving School Doors? A Longitudinal Examination of Teacher, Administrator, and Staff Contributions to School Churn - Emily K. Penner, Yujia Liu, Aaron J. Ainsworth, 2026 Non-teaching staff comprise over half of all school employees, and their turnover may be consequential for school operation, culture, and student success, yet w...

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 🧵

Compelling new evidence on the positive impact of the community schools model from @oppinsights.bsky.social.

Substantial positive impact on academic outcomes and later-in-life earnings, especially for lower-income/higher-risk students.

opportunityinsights.org/paper/cis/

Scores of government statisticians are gone, leaving data at risk, report says A new report reveals that the U.S. government's statistical system is struggling due to staff layoffs, reduced funding, and political interference.

Some carnage going on with US official statistics
‘The hardest hit agency was the National Center for Education Statistics, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, which lost 95% of its staff.’
apnews.com/article/cens...

The West Texas Measles Outbreak and Student Absences Declining child-vaccination rates are driving a measles resurgence in the US, yet little evidence documents how these outbreaks may disrupt schooling. Using daily absence data from a school district a...

We provide early evidence on the impact of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks on learning opportunities, and the schooling disruptions that the growing number of low-coverage communities could face if outbreaks continue to spread. See working paper: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1358

Segregation Academies in Mississippi Are Benefiting From Public Dollars, as They Did in the 1960s ProPublica identified 20 schools in the state that likely opened as segregation academies and have received almost $10 million over the past six years from the state’s tax credit donation program.

ProPublica identified 20 segregation academies in Mississippi that received almost $10 million over six years through a state-funded program.

At least eight opened with an early boost from state-funded vouchers in the 1960s.

(Published Nov. 2024)

A Few Bad Apples? Academic Dishonesty, Political Selection, and Institutional Performance in China Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Fascinating / dark paper: www.nber.org/papers/w34747

8 weeks under siege in Minnesota • Minnesota Reformer Frank has a hard time explaining to his 8-year-old daughter why they rarely leave their home in the Twin Cities. Why she can’t go to school, and why he can’t work. “The only thing we tell her is that ...

"In St. Paul, at least one-fourth of students from Spanish-speaking homes have missed every day of school since Dec. 12."

Digital Distractions with Peer Influence: The Impact of Mobile App Usage on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes* Abstract. Concerns about excessive mobile phone use among youth are mounting. We present estimates of behavioral and contextual peer effects, along with co

#QJE Feb 2026, #1, “Digital Distractions with Peer Influence: The Impact of Mobile App Usage on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes,” by Barwick, Chen, Fu, and Li: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

The risks of AI in schools outweigh the benefits, report says A new report warns that AI poses a serious threat to children's cognitive development and emotional well-being.

"The sweeping study... found that using AI in education can 'undermine children's foundational development' and that 'the damages it has already caused are daunting.'"

They include limiting kids' cognitive, social, and emotional developmen, and increasing inequity.

www.npr.org/2026/01/14/n...

The Impacts of Parole Supervision Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

This new paper shows that shortening the length of parole supervision from 12 months to 6 months reduced prison readmissions within a year by ~45%, driven by reductions in technical revocations. This decrease in incarceration was achieved with no increase in new crime. ⬇️ www.nber.org/papers/w34663

Key Takeaways from the Negotiated Rulemaking Data Release I thought that the end of 2025 was going to be relatively quiet when I wrote my last piece a couple of weeks ago, but my words to the Chronicle of Higher Education for their 25-year retrospective c…

The Department of Education's negotiated rulemaking session on higher ed accountability starts today. Here is my first look at new program-level data that ED released, which also highlights the 30 percent of graduate and professional programs where average borrowing exceeds the new federal caps.

AEFP is expanding our conference subsidies program to offer financial assistance to a broader membership base so that more researchers, policymakers & practitioners have the opportunity to connect at the conference. The deadline to apply is January 5, 2026 aefpweb.org/conferen...

Experienced teachers help other teachers improve more quickly, through collaboration ⬇️

The best representatives of youth dissent? High school activists! with Aaron Fountain - American Campus Podcast High school organizers have much to teach us about young peoples' political priorities.Make a request for future episodes here!We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here!Refe...

I appeared on American Campus podcast to discuss my new book, High School Students Unite!, with historian @llassabe.bsky.social. Check it out: americancampuspodcast.buzzsprout.com/2396665/epis...

Opinion | Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right

A tough read for everybody who loves kids: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/o...

Economics of Race and Stratification, Spring 2026

DEADLINE TODAY: The NBER Race and Stratification Working Group will have its annual meeting on Friday, March 27, 2026. @franciscaantman.bsky.social, Bocar Ba, Robynn Cox and I are organizing the program. Submit your paper today! @nber.org #Econsky www.nber.org/conferences/...

Hey #econsky! I'm organizing a workshop at Brown this Spring in partnership with Eric Nielsen and Viviana Rodriguez.

The topic is educational measurement. Please submit a paper/extended abstract! We'd love to consider your work.

And please help us spread the word to folks who aren't on bluesky!

State Snapshots of Infant and Toddler Early Care and Education State-by-state breakdowns of the supply, demand, affordability, and licensing requirements for early child care and education.

Nationwide, the supply of infant and toddler #ECE does not meet demand, and the costs of care are #unaffordable for many #families. Curious about the status in your state? Check out our new @urbaninstitute.bsky.social snapshots!

www.urban.org/data-tools/s...

📢 #EdWorkingPapers: Carycruz Bueno, Za Eng Mawi, @linzpage.bsky.social, and Jonathan Smith show that Achieve Atlanta scholarship recipients take out fewer loans, borrow less, earn more credits, and achieve higher GPAs in their first semester of college.

📄 edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1337

🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]

Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges* Abstract. We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and ca

Recently accepted by #QJE, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges,” by Chetty (@Oppinsights), Deming, and Friedman: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...