Missouri

We examine the potential to expand and diversify the production of university STEM degrees by shifting the margin of initial enrollment between community colleges and 4-year universities. Our analysis is based on statewide administrative microdata from the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development covering enrollees in all public postsecondary institutions statewide.

We estimate the education and earnings returns to enrolling in technical two-year degree programs at community colleges in Missouri. A unique feature of the Missouri context is the presence of a highly-regarded, nationally-ranked technical college: State Technical College of Missouri (State Tech). Compared to enrolling in a non-technical community college program, we find that enrolling in a technical program at State Tech greatly increases students’ likelihoods of graduation and earnings.

We use statewide administrative data from Missouri to document the prevalence of Industry Recognized Credential (IRC) programs in public high schools and understand the characteristics of students who complete IRCs. We show that 9 percent of Missouri students complete an IRC during their senior year of high school. IRC completers have lower achievement and are more likely to be disadvantaged along several measurable dimensions relative to their peers who complete analog college-ready programs, on average.

Free and reduced-price meal eligibility (FRM) is commonly used in education research and policy applications as an indicator of student poverty. However, using multiple data sources external to the school system, we show that FRM status is a poor proxy for poverty, with eligibility rates far exceeding what would be expected based on stated income thresholds for program participation. This is true even without accounting for community eligibility for free meals, although community eligibility has exacerbated the problem in recent years.

We evaluate the feasibility of estimating test-score growth for schools and districts with a gap year in test data. Our research design uses a simulated gap year in testing when a true test gap did not occur, which facilitates comparisons of district- and school-level growth estimates with and without a gap year. We find that growth estimates based on the full data and gap year data are generally similar, establishing that useful growth measures can be constructed with a gap year in test data.

We examine how teachers from two alternative preparation programs—Teach for America (TFA) and Kansas City Teacher Residency (KCTR)—contribute to the teacher labor market in and around Kansas City, Missouri. We show that TFA and KCTR teachers are more likely than other teachers to work in charter schools, and more broadly, in schools with high concentrations of low-income, low-performing, and underrepresented minority (Black and Hispanic) students.

In the summer of 2013, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued public, highly-visible ratings of teacher education programs as part of their ambitious and controversial Teacher Prep Review. We provide the first empirical examination of NCTQ ratings, beginning with a descriptive overview...

We study the effects of access to high school math and science courses on postsecondary STEM enrollment and degree attainment using administrative microdata from Missouri. Our data panel includes over 140,000 students from 14 cohorts entering the 4-year public university system. The effects of high school course access are identified by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in course offerings within high schools over time. We find that differential access to high school courses does not affect postsecondary STEM enrollment or degree attainment.