Jo R. King

blizzard = wfh = cat on keyboard = no work accomplished

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."

Paddington in Carol (2015)

I Photoshop Paddington into a movie, TV show, or pop culture until I forget: Day 1729

Trump Admin. Pulls Student Mental Health Grants, Restores Them a Day Later The Trump administration abruptly canceled a slate of mental health grants, only to reinstate them the next day.

Trump Admin. Pulls Student Mental Health Grants, Restores Them a Day Later

www.edweek.org/leadership/t...

Anyways. Small acts of resistance and all.

Prison Book Program is purely volunteer run and they fulfill nearly 20,000 requests each year, amounting to tens of thousands of books. Donate your time and resources if you're in the Boston area!

prisonbookprogram.org

Each request would be subject to restrictions implemented by the facility. One of the most common that I saw was "no calendars" or "no composition books" which seemed odd.

Turns out, facilities sold these items at commissary-- why let inmates have access to them for free?

Prison libraries don't necessarily have a wide selection. I remember fulfilling a range of requests-- some folks wanted to learn about solar cells, others wanted to learn how to write poetry. Some wanted to read comics.

Most consistently, folks wanted access to legal literature or blank journals.

Even if prisons do have libraries, they often did not have a librarian. If they did have a librarian, the library may be open for less than an hour a week. If the prison is locked down, inmates couldn't access the library.

When inmates have their OWN books, they can keep them in their cells.

In addition to fulfilling book requests, we would often get replies from inmates where, in addition to amazing poetry and drawings, they would detail how important the Prison Book Program was for them. They would also describe the obstacles in accessing books *within* the prison system.

I volunteered with Prison Book Program who, until now, has provided books to incarcerated folks free of charge in all 50 states.

AR came up at the last volunteer session and it seems like this is going into place under the guise of addressing contraband (lol)

A quick thread.
prisonbookprogram.org

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

They will murder unarmed citizens and then accuse them of wrongdoing. Zero sense of accountability or shame.

We @wheelockpolicybu.bsky.social are hiring a director for our Policy-Aligned Research Agenda Buildling Lab (PARABL), to help education system leaders build research roadmaps to effect change in a particular area.

More info here:

wheelockpolicycenter.org/wp-content/u...

Higher Education and Political Polarization Paper Session Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (EST) Philadelphia Convention Center, 204-C Hosted By: AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Chair: Joshua Goodman, Boston University

Politics, Institutional Choices, and Student Outcomes in Education Paper Session Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (EST) Philadelphia Convention Center, 203-A Hosted By: AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Chair: Amalia Miller, University of Virginia

I’m in Philly for #ASSA2026! I’ll be discussing and presenting, respectively, in these two sessions👇

Lots of great work will be shared in both, so come by if you’re around!

what a bar

you’re obsessed!!!

Me, currently:

Grades are in, which means I’m officially done with the first semester on the tenure track 🤩

Doodle courtesy of a student’s final exam:

Update on JOE postings -- things are worse: paulgp.com/2025/12/10/q...

So happy that this paper has (finally) found a great home!

It started as Jo’s @miamiecon.bsky.social master’s thesis when I was a first year AP and has been a joy to work on with them and Austin these past few years.

See below for a 🧵 on our results!

A lesson in persistence fr

Taken together, these results suggest that broader economic conditions play a significant role in how student behavior is addressed in schools. They also highlight the role that social safety net policy plays in ensuring positive educational experiences for youth-- schools can't do it alone!

We further show that this moderating effect is unique to UI– the generosity of other social safety net programs such as TANF, EITC, SSI, and SNAP do not explain this phenomenon, nor do layoff-induced changes in school characteristics/composition.

Table of regression coefficients for each subsample.

Disaggregating these results by subgroup reveals that these impacts are driven by Black students and male students, especially those Black students in predominantly White schools and in schools with a high baseline reliance on suspension.

Figure with 3 panels depicting a negative relationship between effect sizes of layoff events on in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and expulsions and unemployment insurance generosity. UI generosity ranges from $250 to $707.

We demonstrate a key fact:

UI benefits reduce the impact of layoffs on student suspensions. At the lowest level of UI, suspension rates increase by 5.1%. At the most generous level of UI, suspension rates actually decrease.

To answer these questions, we use publicly available data on city-level layoffs under the WARN act, state-level unemployment insurance generosity, and school-level data on suspension rates.

In this paper, we concern ourselves with the role of social context beyond the purview of education policy. We ask:

1. How do local labor market shocks affect student disciplinary incidence?
2. Can social safety net policies mitigate these impacts?

Suspension is a common (and resurging) way to address student misbehavior in schools, despite its negative impact on a student’s lifecourse. Understanding the determinants of suspension as well as policies that may reduce its use, is thus key for education and social policymakers alike.

Suspended from work and school? Impacts of layoff events and unemployment insurance on student disciplinary incidence We examine the impact of local labor market shocks and state unemployment insurance (UI) policies on student discipline in U.S. public schools. Analyz…

🚨New publication alert #econsky🚨

Thrilled to have “Suspended from Work and School? Impacts of layoff events and unemployment insurance on student disciplinary incidence” forthcoming at Labour Economics with @riacton.bsky.social and Austin Smith

Paper thread incoming 🧵
tinyurl.com/susp-ws

Job market paper has R&R 🤩🥰🤪

Doing the R&R 🥴🫠🫩