Umut Özek

Umut Özek

@uozek.bsky.social

Senior economist at RAND. Engineer turned economist. Education policy, immigration/immigrant students. Opinions mine.

1,535 Followers 1,038 Following 145 Posts Joined Sep 2023
1 day ago

You never know...there is no causal link yet :)

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1 day ago

Congrats!

Has anyone written a paper about the effects of receiving a "best reviewer" award on the number of review requests?

I would definitely read it :)

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2 days ago

Great work by @jieezhong.bsky.social!

If you are trying to make sense of the evidence on test-based grade retention policies, I have a new chapter that just came out @aefplivehandbook.bsky.social:

livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...

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3 days ago
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🚨Ed policy researchers, look at the newest special call!

📲 We’re eager to fund RCTs and quasi-experimental studies that produce actionable evidence on how K–12 cell phone policies affect student learning, behavior, and well-being.

🗓️ 3-page LOIs due May 1. Learn more: bit.ly/47n9e1L

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3 days ago

And declines in student achievement among Hispanic and Spanish-speaking students, both U.S. and foreign born.

www.nber.org/papers/w34452

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1 month ago

DO NOT check silver!

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1 month ago
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🚨📢 Call for papers - IV Workshop on Economics of Education, Valle Nevado 🇨🇱⛷️

📅 August 18-21
📍Valle Nevado, Chile

Keynotes by Josh Goodman (
@buwheelock.bsky.social ) and Chris Neilson (Yale)

Submit by March 6 👇
bit.ly/49QSsd3

@joshua-goodman.com @christopherneilson.bsky.social

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3 months ago
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🎯 Essential takeaways from the #EdWorkingPapers Policy and Practice Series!

A summary of “The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida” by David Figlio and @uozek.bsky.social

📄 edworkingpapers.com/policy-pract...

#AnnenbergEdExchange

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3 months ago

Pretty well established finding that immigration raids of workplaces reduce student test performance for nearby schools, including for non-vulnerable students. The general DHS surge appears to be doing the same for student performance. www.nber.org/papers/w34452

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3 months ago

Congrats, @jieezhong.bsky.social!

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3 months ago
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📢 #EdWorkingPapers: How does the surge in US immigration enforcement affect students?

David Figlio and @uozek.bsky.social find that heightened immigration enforcement in 2025 reduced test scores for both US-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students.

📄https://buff.ly/ejMnGpY

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4 months ago

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

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

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4 months ago
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New evidence on how ICE is affecting student learning

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1erU5Oe0vJYdVjuqQi4sfhUGxS0BGjWl8/view?usp=drivesdk

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4 months ago
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(Extremely) proud musician husband moment!!

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4 months ago
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New Paper 📝📢
"The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida"
✍️ David N. Figlio @uozek.bsky.social

The study highlights that cellphone bans have a greater effect in middle and high schools, where smartphone ownership is more common.
🔗 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/pu...

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4 months ago
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School cellphone bans have spread with little hard data. A new study finds benefits and costs. Researchers studying a large urban district in Florida found modest improvements in test scores after schools banned cellphones. They also saw suspensions rise.

New study on the impact of cellphone bans from Figlio & @uozek.bsky.social - evidence backs MCPS policy.

Featured in @chalkbeat.org www.chalkbeat.org/2025/10/20/n...

Paper in @nber.org www.nber.org/system/files...

cc @julieyangmoco.bsky.social

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4 months ago
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The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida 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...

New study on student cellphone bans finds short-term increases in discipline issues but ultimately improvements in both attendance and student achievement. www.nber.org/papers/w3438...

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4 months ago
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Cellphone bans can help kids learn — but Black students are suspended more as schools make the shift Thirty states now limit or ban cellphone use in classrooms, and teachers are noticing children paying attention to their lessons again. But it’s not clear whether this policy — unpopular with students and a headache for teachers to enforce — makes an academic difference. If student achievement goes up after a cellphone ban, it’s tough to know if the ban was the reason. Some other change in math or reading instruction might have caused the improvement. Or maybe the state assessment became easier to pass. Imagine if politicians required all students to wear striped shirts and test scores rose.

Cellphone bans can help kids learn — but Black students are suspended more as schools make the shift

Thirty states now limit or ban cellphone use in classrooms, and teachers are noticing children paying attention to their lessons again. But it’s not clear whether this policy — unpopular with…

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4 months ago

Main takeaway:

"...cellphone bans could improve student outcomes, yet these benefits come at the cost of elevated suspension rates in the short term. The challenge that educators face is to minimize these short-term adverse effects until a new status quo is established in schools."

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4 months ago

"In fact, our exploratory analysis suggests that nearly half of the test score effects of the ban in middle and high schools in the first two years can be explained by the effect of the ban on unexcused absences."

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4 months ago

We found evidence the ban significantly reduced unexcused absences in both first and second years, especially for students in middle and high schools, providing suggestive evidence that improved student engagement and school climate could be important factors behind the observed test score benefits

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6 months ago
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Well done, Kaiser Permanente...hope to hear similar news from other insurance providers.

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6 months ago

Nice summary of this paper by @futureedgu.bsky.social

www.future-ed.org/research-not...

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6 months ago

I am so sorry for your loss, Daniel...

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7 months ago

Like Chris, I am from a country with two inflation numbers - the official one and the unofficial one that is significantly higher.

I hope we can avoid that here in the U.S.

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7 months ago
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Live Updates: After a Weak Jobs Report, Trump Says He’s Firing That Agency’s Commissioner

This is incredibly concerning for the reliability of federal data moving forward...

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07...

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7 months ago

Such a waste of talent...

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7 months ago
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We are looking for a postdoc to work on exciting RCTs circling around scaling up mentoring interventions, starting in July 2026 💪🏻🚀

Amazing team at @ifoeducation.bsky.social & the perfect place to thrive with ifo, @cesifo.org + @econmunich.bsky.social 🫶🏻🌟

Please share widely 🙏🙏

Link below 👇

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8 months ago

Really glad that this paper found a great home!

This is the third paper that came out of a project that started in 2018...hard to believe that we will have (at least) one more related paper after 7 years!

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8 months ago

What to do?

- target students with lower baseline achievement

- allow students in remedial schedule to take advanced courses in non-remediation subjects to alleviate tracking concerns

- provide remediation outside of regular school hours to alleviate crowding out concerns.

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