Sofía Wilson

Deeply concerned about the trauma and developmental harm this admin is inflicting on students. Local news reporting absenteeism rate post ICE raid doubled relative to its rate from prior year in Charlotte. What @tomdee.bsky.social found in Central Valley, CA occurring in many cities throughout US.

Why have girls' test scores declined relative to boys' in recent years? Next Tuesday (11/18) at 4 pm, join the PIER Public Seminar series for a conversation with Stanford University's sean... Why have girls' test scores declined relative to boys' in recent years? Next Tuesday (11/18) at 4 pm, join the PIER Public Seminar series for a conversation with Stanford University's sean reardon, wh...

Girls’ test scores dropped more than boys’ post pandemic—but not everywhere. We use 15 years of data from 7k+ districts to understand why, and what this might teach us about how societal shocks impact gender disparities in ed outcomes. Hear sean present our findings tomorrow: lnkd.in/eEe-DTND

Fascinating, important work with novel dataset.

Why is this economics?

We show how backlash to the most significant social policy since the abolition of slavery -- school integration --reshaped markets, reallocated resources, and reduced human capital.

Read the paper 👇

(P.S. I'm presenting this at APPAM this weekend! Come say hi!)

12/12

Nice summary of our paper and related work by @tomdee.bsky.social and @kslungaardmumma.bsky.social here.

www.chalkbeat.org/2025/11/10/i...

Hi folks attending #2025APPAM #APPAM2025! Excited to see many of you in Seattle this week.

As usual, I am organizing a very informal happy hour for education policy folks at the conference to get together: Fri 11/14 starting at 6pm at Seattle Beer Co on Western Ave (~15 min walk from conference).

Excited to head to Seattle this week for #APPAM2025. I’ll be presenting my work on how universal pre-K expansions affect public school system enrollment. If you're interested in spillover effects of early childhood policies, get in touch & hope to see you in Seattle!

I'm on the job market!

My JMP studies the role of high school teachers in preparing students for college success

I find significant positive effects of high school teachers on
🔹College admissions test scores
🔹College enrollment
🔹College performance

🧵(1/10)

Published in Economics of Education Review! Building on @joshua-goodman.com's post, we find public school enrollment declines are concentrated in higher-income districts, middle grades, and among White and Asian students. I hope these findings support discussions on the shifting education landscape.

Know any aspiring PhD students interested in quant studies in education? Please direct them to our programs in ed policy, econ of ed, or ed data science! I hope to welcome an energetic & ambitious student to join me in our new building 🌴☀️
Applications due November 17
ed.stanford.edu/admissions/a...

This is my last week at the Wall Street Journal.

I'll be returning to Chalkbeat to launch a new section focused on the big ideas and debates in American education. More on this soon!

You can sign up to keep following my work here:
www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

Hi Bluesky!

I'm excited to share my job market paper (for the 2025-26 market)!

It introduces a new extension of RDD where outcomes are entire distributions: Regression Discontinuity Design with Distributions (R3D).

Thread below 👇 (1/)

Teachers sue over Trump's immigration crackdown, saying students are staying home Labor unions representing educators and school employees are suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its immigration crackdown

It's gratifying to see my recent immigration-raid research actually being used.
wapo.st/42mWdTn

Judge Blocks Trump From Removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook The order allows Cook to remain on the central bank’s board for now while her legal challenge proceeds.

Breaking: Lisa Cook can remain on the Fed's board for now, a judge ruled, blocking Trump from firing her.

I'm on Cambridge's 87 bus right now, heading to the Royal Sonesta to hear some great Economics of Education talks as part of the #NBER Summer Institute.

I'll try to live post as many as possible, so watch this thread!

@nber.org #EconSky

Yes!!! Huge congratulations, Zach! So deserved.

Suddenly sacked Former education stats chief describes her final days under DOGE

And the exact circumstances of her dismissal were chilling -- both figuratively and literally. Please read if you have some time today. (3/3)
hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

The @nytimes.com spotlighted a new study from #EdWorkingPapers that examines the profound impact of immigration raids on attendance in California's Central Valley.

Read the NYT article below.

Families responded to pronounced full-day kindergarten expansions across the US over three decades with increases in employment among moms and decreases in childcare expenses for families, from @chloergibbs.bsky.social, Jocelyn S. Wikle, and Riley Wilson https://www.nber.org/papers/w33948

Excited to share my joint work with @joshua-goodman.com on K-12 enrollment patterns in Massachusetts. Five years after the pandemic began, we're seeing persistent enrollment losses in public schools, especially in the middle school years-trends that mirror what's happening nationally. Check it out!

Important study by @tomdee.bsky.social shows recent immigration raids led to a 22% spike in school absences in CA’s Central Valley — with particular impacts among youngest kids.

A screenshot of the abstract of the working paper

Figure 1: School Enrollment Pathways for Lottery Winners and Control Group Students through 8th Grade. This figure represents school enrollment pathways across different school types (BPS, BPS Exam School, non-BPS district school, charter school, and other) for both lottery winners and the control group. The thickness of the lines represents the percentage of lottery winners/control group students that are enrolled in each type of school. Blue lines show the pathways taken by lottery winners, and BPS-specific school categories are highlighted in the light blue boxes. BPS = Boston Public Schools.

🤔 What kind of Pre-K experience sets students up for long-term success?

Our new working paper offers important new evidence to help answer this question!

🔗 edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai25-1194.pdf

And 🧵👇

This cowardly move is meant to stoke fear in the hearts & minds of international students, but without a doubt this affects us all. Blatant authoritarianism. Universities and all of us must band together.

Wage Enhancements Benefit Child Care Staffing in DC In this summary, we provide sustained evidence of the benefits of the District of Columbia’s wage enhancement program for early childhood educators, the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, to ch...

🌟What if early educators were paid like K-12 teachers? New evidence from Washington, DC shows what would happen: more stability in the child care workforce, higher-quality caregiving, and greater mental health and financial well-being for early educators.🌟

#EduSkyECEC

www.urban.org/research/pub...

Congratulations, Ericka! So well deserved.

Ericka Weathers selected for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of This award will support the assistant professor in Penn GSE’s Policy, Organizations, and Leadership division in a five-year research plan on institutional responses to truancy.

I’m really proud of myself & the work I’ve been doing. I’m also thankful for the Foundation’s investment in my work, ideas, & me as a scholar! Amidst a political climate of disinvestment from justice-oriented work, shout out to WTG for “standing 10 toes down”! 1/3
www.gse.upenn.edu/news/ericka-...

Need some good education news? Over the last decade, the number of students taking an AP Computer Science exam more than tripled and that was no accident.

In a new @pnas.org study, Daniela Ganelin & I find that roughly two-thirds of this growth can be attributed to the new AP CS Principles course.

Encourage education researchers to read resources compiled by my advisor sean reardon on actions we can take to save research using NCES restricted-use data: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

If you have research dependent on these data here is my suggestion
1/N

Big picture:

Create a dataset of cell means (cells must be big enough to pass disclosure)

- load these cell means into many, many tables & put through review

-These cell means can then be used in OLS - which runs on means