Dan Goldhaber

UPDATE: Los Angeles Unified School District could issue 3,200 layoff notices to staff The latest education news updates from EdSource.

Looks like teacher layoffs are coming (not very surprising given the end of ESSER and declining enrollment). How this is done matters for students: caldercenter.org/publications...

Los Angeles Unified School District could issue 3,200 layoff notices to staff edsource.org?page_id=751360

Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers (October 2009) - Using longitudinal elementary school teacher and student data, we document that students have larger test score gains when their teachers experience improvements in the observable cha...

I haven't seen that as an experiment, though some of those context changes are inherent in this Jackson/Bruegmann study: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Teaching as a team sport: What happens when a great teacher moves to a struggling school? New research on a federal program found that when top teachers transferred to high-need schools, their performance dropped significantly. Teacher effectiveness may not be a fixed skill.

Nice @mattbarnum.bsky.social piece describing an important new study on whether really effective (85th%ile) teachers who have a big change in school context continue to be really effective. They don't: they continue to be effective (66th%ile), but not top tier.

www.chalkbeat.org/2026/02/17/t...

postdoctoral associate at Princeton ad

New Postdoctoral Research Associate positions at @Princeton's Office of Population Research!

Attend the upcoming #CALDER2026 conference to catch a session by SPARC Center Director @roddy-theobald.bsky.social on Evidence on What Makes Teachers Stay: Schedules, Salaries, and School Leaders! 💡

All of your questions will be answered!

In all seriousness, if you have questions for these folks, please reply to this post and ask them (I'll try to get them in).

Wow that looks like a delicious feast!

When do we get the update???

This week, our experts LaRon Scott and @lmasonwms.bsky.social presented at the @ceedarcenter.bsky.social Cross-State Convening on strengthening teacher and leader preparation. When we lead together, we can better support #SpecialEducation teachers and students with disabilities.

Just saw @gzamarro.bsky.social give a preview of this work and can confidently say that if you're interested in teacher retention and/or compensation - YOU WILL WANT TO BE THERE.

Just a couple weeks away. Register soon!

OK, so space really is filling up (which means that my anxiety scale about holding a conference for an empty room is not too high now), so sign up before it's too late!

There are lots of times where a null results is interesting and important, but I think there's little doubt that it's harder to get work with a null published.

Super interesting stuff 👇

Yes!

My anxiety countdown has officially started!

I'm going to study up and have an answer ready before AEFP!

Conference humor!

Lots of stuff going on including a conference in early March - March 2nd in Crystal City (which sounds like it might be a city on Tatooine).

There are big gaps in which children are ready for kindergarten, data shows Kindergarten readiness varies by household income. Publicly funded preschool programs are helping close the gap. “I’m giving them something that I never got,” one preschool teacher said.

Kindergarten readiness varies by household income. Publicly funded preschool programs are helping close the gap. “I’m giving them something that I never got,” one preschool teacher said.

Learn more about higher education finance in Lindsay Leasor and Kevin Stange’s chapter on expenditures and costs: livehandbook.org/higher-educa...

Breaking Bad!

Meet us at the crossroads (which turns out to be in Arlington/Crystal City, VA)!

PS - "Replication is a fools game." I don't think so, but I get the point of adaptation.

Success stories shouldn’t be a secret | Episode 1004 of The Education Gadfly Show This week on The Education Gadfly Show, we’re joined by Karin Chenoweth, founder of Democracy and Education and author of Schools that Succeed, to talk about what she’s learned from years of visiting ...

Were I still teaching, I'd have my ed policy or quant classes listen to this episode. Great convo about successful schools, and what we can/can't conclude from outliers (selection on the dependent variable, etc.).
fordhaminstitute.org/national/res...

I just read this paper on math education in the US and was struck by two central findings:

1) One more hour/week of math instruction in a given topic increases scores in that topic by 0.04 SD.

2) Teachers emphasizing students' active participation are more than 2X as productive as other teachers.

On Thursday, come to the Boston Fed and hear me present my work with Joe Winkelmann on

"Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment"

The talk is open to all. Register here 👇

www.bostonfed.org/news-and-eve...

Join us for another great #SustainableED virtual public seminar this Monday!

This will include lots of "hot off the press (i.e., Stata)" results!

See you soon!

New JOE Listings were posted today (02-01-2026).

#EconConf