Hi! I’m an applied economist focused on providing credible empirical evidence relevant to the contemporary challenges and opportunities in public policy, particularly with respect to education and health. I’m also the Barnett Family Professor at Stanford University, the Robert and Marion Oster Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), a Research Associate with the Programs on Education, Children, and Health at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and the Faculty Director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities. I currently serve on the editorial boards of the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Education Finance and Policy. My cv is available here.
Recent News
May 4, 2026 — Our national study of school phone bans is now available. See coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Scientific American.
March 24, 2026 — Elizabeth Huffaker and I discussed the early results from San Francisco’s “Algebra in 8th Grade” pilots with the School Board, which authorized a district-wide scale-up. See coverage by the New York Times, The 74, and Education Week.
February 3, 2026 — I’m pleased to join the Advisory Board of the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
January 7, 2026 — I was honored to be included in this list of publicly influential education scholars from Education Week.
December 17, 2025 — In a new, co-authored study, we find that the major measles outbreak that occurred recently in West Texas increased student absenteeism by 41 percent. See coverage by the Associated Press and the Stanford Report.
November 17, 2025 — Our study of mental-health co-responders in San Mateo County, CA, now out in Nature Human Behaviour, finds positive effects relative to police-only responses.
November 4, 2025 — My study on the recent immigration raid in California’s Central Valley is now out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
October 22, 2025 — I gave the 2025 Annenberg Distinguished Lecture on “Understanding and Addressing Chronic Absenteeism” at Brown University.
September 24, 2025 — I was on the Policy Changes Lives podcast, sponsored by Excel in Ed, to discuss when and how students should access Algebra.
September 8, 2025 — In an Education Week #K12BigIdeas essay, I criticize the quality and connectedness of education research, policy, and practice and suggest solutions.
June 16, 2025 — My new study on the recent immigration raids finds they increased student absences by 22 percent. See news coverage in the New York Times, The Hill, Education Week, EdSource, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
April 10, 2025 — Now out at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: my new study with Stanford doctoral student, Daniela Ganelin, finds that adopting the new AP Computer Science Principles course dramatically increased (and diversified) student participation in AP Computer Science without crowding out take-up of the preexisting course. See news coverage in Education Week and the Stanford Report.
March 21, 2025 — My Rossi Award essay, “The Case for Preregistering Quasi-Experimental Program and Policy Evaluations” is now out in Evaluation Review.
March 18, 2025 — I spoke on behalf of participating faculty as the Stanford-Sequoia K-12 Research Collaborative received a Community Partnership Award from Stanford University.