Publications
Explaining Variation in Political Leadership by Marginalized Groups: Black Office-Holding and Contraband Camps with Megan Stewart, at Journal of Politics Available here
Abstract: What explains variation in rates of political office-holding by marginalized groups? We argue that a certain social infrastructure facilitates office-holding, but dominant social groups tend to monopolize this infrastructure and in turn office-holding. In places exposed to a limitation on dominant groups’ monopolization of this social infrastructure, marginalized groups can access it and hold office at higher rates than marginalized groups who were not exposed to this limitation. We test our argument using the creation of “contraband camps” during the US Civil War. These camps limited White men’s monopolization of the social infrastructure of political participation. We therefore expect higher rates of Black office-holding in counties exposed to contraband camps, relative to counties in the same state without camps. Quantitative results relying on existing and original data indicate that counties with camps produced almost twice as many Black political leaders as similar counties in the same state without a camp.
Partisanship and Professionalization: School Board Decision-Making in the Midst of a Pandemic with Megan Goldberg, at Urban Affairs Review
Available here
Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, school board members played a prominent role in deciding reopening plans. Using an original large-scale survey of board members, our goal is to understand how the polarized, political context of pandemic responses shaped the decision-making processes of members as they experienced dramatic increases in workload. We find school board members are much more likely to identify at the extremes of partisan identity, as strong Democrats or strong Republicans. How they identified mattered in who they trusted to tell them information, how much control they felt the board should have in the process of reopening plans, and who should interpret data about COVID. If the other party was in power at the state level, members from opposing parties had less trust in state sources. Most school board elections are nonpartisan, but that does not mean that the members themselves do not strongly identify with a party.
What matters in school reopening plans: an analysis of the impact of school board demographics, with Sabrina Harris and Kathryn Miller at Politics, Groups , and Identities
Available here
Abstract: Did the demographic composition of American school boards influence a given school district’s reopening responses and social safety measures to the COVID-19 pandemic? We explore how factors of race and gender of school board members influences how districts implement remote, in-person, or hybridized schooling measures. Using an original data set of 1893 school districts and 11,186 school board members, we test whether the demographic composition of a school board is predictive of school reopening plans and masking policies. We find that race and partisanship are influential in determining the usage of remote instruction and safety measures. Importantly, the congruence between local- and state-level partisanship is also found to be influential in determining the intensity of safety measures. We find that the influence of identity characteristics of school board members is less critical to shaping decision-making processes than the partisanship of a state’s governor. In Democratic states, the governor’s executive orders tend to override the influence school board members’ racial and gender identities, versus in Republican states the school board’s demographic composition is more predictive of school reopening plans and masking policies.
From preschool to politics: Early socialization in Tulsa, with William Gormley, at Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Available here
Abstract:Voting in an election can be a complicated process, requiring both knowledge and motivation. According to the “primacy principle” and theories of “human capital formation,” early childhood learning has the potential to shape attitudes and behaviors later in life. If correct, these theories suggest that early childhood education could help develop skills necessary for voting. Using data from Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), we identify 4033 students who entered kindergarten in the fall of 2006. Approximately half of those students were enrolled in universal pre-K the year before. We then identify which of these students registered to vote and actually voted in the two years after they turned 18. Using propensity score weighting, we find that students enrolled in pre-K were more likely to register to vote and to vote in an election than those not enrolled in pre-K. We explore potential paths through which pre-K might increase civic participation. We find that pre-K increases both cognitive and socio-emotional skills and that an increase in these skills is associated with an increase in registering to vote (cognitive) and actual voting (cognitive and socio-emotional).
School Characteristics and Voting: What Matters in Turnout and Passage, at Urban Affairs Review
Available here
Abstract: Do school characteristics predict the likelihood of turning out to vote on tax referendums for school funding or predict passage of tax referendums for school funding? I rely on publicly available Florida Voter Registration files and connect voters to their closest elementary school. I then aggregate individual data to the precinct level to test what characteristics predict the passage of tax referendums. Pairing the individual level turnout
data with the precinct level data, I find that there are differences in the composition of voters across election types and these voters are responding to different characteristics of schools. While we might expect school characteristics to matter more for special elections, this is not the case. School characteristics matter less in special elections because who is turning out to vote is different in those elections. General elections are the only time in which school performance is statistically related to the percent of yes vote.
Race, school discipline, and magnet schools, with NaLette Brodnax, at AERA Open
Available here
Abstract: School environment plays an important role in student outcomes. Increasingly, research has also highlighted the role school environment plays in the White–Black suspension gap. We test whether magnet schools reduce the White–Black suspension gap using data from Tulsa Public Schools. Using student-level and incident-level data from Tulsa, Oklahoma, we explore whether Black students receive exclusionary discipline at lower rates in magnet schools than in traditional schools compared with White students. Using matching techniques to minimize selection bias, we find that magnet schools in Tulsa are associated with a reduction in the racial suspension gap. In magnet schools in Tulsa, we do not find a racial gap in severity of incident or days assigned.
Partisan Politics and Public Education: Finding the formula for (electoral) success , at State Politics & Policy Quarterly
Available here or the published version here.
Abstract: Do state politicians reward school districts that vote in favor of the party in power more than school districts that vote in favor of opposing party? With large shares of money at the state level to transfer to local governments and the ability to target core voters, it would seem likely that politicians would take advantage of the ability to distribute education funds. However, in understanding how states distribute education funds, little emphasis is given to partisan influences, particularly the congruence between local school districts and the state level. To test this, I collected data at the precinct level within each state, and using mapping software, spatially joined precinct boundaries to school district boundaries. Once this relationship was established, I aggregated precinct level information to school districts to understand the partisan voting patterns within each school district for elections from 2000 to 2010. This article finds evidence that funding formulas are susceptible to political influence and that parties are able to influence the geographic distribution of education funds to core voters.
Exit or Invest: Segregation increases funding for public education, at Journal of Politics
Article can be downloaded here and the data can be found: here. It is also available here.
Abstract: Does segregation help or hurt support for public education? Previous literature has identified diversity, and more recently segregation, as key predictors for spending less on public goods. Because of schools' historical legacy with segregation, segregation could play a very different role in funding public education. To test this, I have collected data on the 11,000 plus school district in the United States from 1995 to 2011. Using multi-level models with a state-school district nested design, I find that white-black segregation leads to more investment in public education while white-Hispanic segregation, as well as segregation by income, has no effect. This result is robust across a broad array of alternative specifications, including an instrumental variable analysis using the number of years after an overturned court desegregation order as an instrument for school segregation. The results imply that segregation is still shaping public education.
Social Transformation and Violence: Evidence from U.S. Reconstruction, with Megan Stewart, at Comparative Politics Study
Available here.
Abstract: How do political actors achieve revolutionary social transformation, and what are the consequences of their efforts? In this paper, we argue that the greater resources allocated to the beneficiaries of transformative social and political schemes, the more successful political actors will be in achieving the change they desire. But success comes at a cost: violence is more likely to emerge when transformative projects succeed, specifically, when they succeed in reducing social hierarchies between historically repressed and privileged communities. Effective reductions to long-standing social inequities trigger resentment among privileged communities leading to violence against repressed communities. Furthermore, because historically repressed communities work to institutionalize and preserve socio-economic gains arising from statebuilding interventions, such gains in status, as well as violence in response to them, persist over the long-term. We quantitatively test our arguments using historical, county-level data on post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction and we supply both quantitative and qualitative evidence for our mechanisms. Our findings support our theory. We thus introduce a new mechanism that causally links social transformation to violence, thereby expanding our understanding of how actors consolidate social orders, and how societies' respond to these efforts.
Dividing lines: The role school district boundaries play in spending inequality for public education at Social Science Quarterly
Available here
Abstract: Do political boundaries, particularly along racial cleavages, contribute to differences in spending on public goods? In explaining differences in per child expenditures across school districts, economic differences are the most cited. Racial segregation often occurs along school district borders and could lead to differences in per child expenditures through concentration of resources in certain districts. To test whether racial segregation across districts impacts inequality in education funding, I have collected data on the 11,000 plus school district and 1,800 counties in the United States from 1995 to 2011. Using a series of panel models, I find that white-black segregation leads to increased variation in per child local revenue within counties. Within these segregated counties, districts with larger black populations collect less in local revenue but have a higher tax burden.
Do Better Schools Help to Prolong Early Childhood Education Effects? (with William Gormley and Sara Anderson), at Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Available Here
Abstract: As scholars investigate factors to prolong early childhood education (ECE) effects on student achievement, a neglected hypothesis is that magnet school attendance promotes this goal. We test this premise, using data from 1,844 students who attended kindergarten in the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) in 2006 and who were identifiable in the school district a decade later. Approximately half of those students attended an ECE program. Using propensity score weighting with multiple imputation, we find that ECE alumni are more likely to attend a magnet middle school and a magnet high school. We also find that magnet middle school attendance yields higher test scores, after controlling for multiple variables. Under the right conditions, magnet schools could help public schools to sustain short-term gains from ECE for a diverse cross-section of students. We discuss results within a broader context of mechanisms to sustain ECE effects.
The Hispanic Extracurricular Participation Gap in Middle School (with William Gormley) at Social Science Quarterly, 2018
Available Here
Abstract: Some scholars have noted a gap in extra-curricular (EC) participation between Hispanic students and other students (Darling, Caldwell & Smith 2005). But why exactly does this gap exist? One possibility is that Hispanic parents, whose education levels are relatively low, do not value EC activity as much as other parents. Another possibility is that limited financial resources make it difficult for Hispanic parents to finance EC activities that require special fees (like sports or marching bands). A third possibility is that Hispanic students have limited financial resources that limit time available for EC activity (e.g., girls have to baby sit). A fourth possibility is that there is less access to activities for Hispanic students. We analyze membership in EC activities across seven different activity types for 381 Hispanic students and 447 white students in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We find that parental awareness, as measured by mother’s education, is the dominant predictor of EC activity. We also find that EC activity predicts academic outcomes in middle school, even after controlling for early academic success.
Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections (with Michele Swers) at Politics & Gender, 2016
Article can be found here.
Abstract: Research indicates that fundraising is not an impediment to women candidates because women raise just as much money as men after accounting for seat status. However, previous research focuses solely on general election candidates. By examining both primary and general election candidates, we find both gender and partisan differences in fundraising. While incumbency, competitiveness, and candidate quality predict fundraising in the general election, we show that Democratic women raise more money than their male counterparts in the primary election. However, Republican women do not enjoy greater fundraising success compared with their male counterparts, and in limited cases, being a Republican woman can be an obstacle to fundraising in the primary election.
Explaining Variation in Political Leadership by Marginalized Groups: Black Office-Holding and Contraband Camps with Megan Stewart, at Journal of Politics Available here
Abstract: What explains variation in rates of political office-holding by marginalized groups? We argue that a certain social infrastructure facilitates office-holding, but dominant social groups tend to monopolize this infrastructure and in turn office-holding. In places exposed to a limitation on dominant groups’ monopolization of this social infrastructure, marginalized groups can access it and hold office at higher rates than marginalized groups who were not exposed to this limitation. We test our argument using the creation of “contraband camps” during the US Civil War. These camps limited White men’s monopolization of the social infrastructure of political participation. We therefore expect higher rates of Black office-holding in counties exposed to contraband camps, relative to counties in the same state without camps. Quantitative results relying on existing and original data indicate that counties with camps produced almost twice as many Black political leaders as similar counties in the same state without a camp.
Partisanship and Professionalization: School Board Decision-Making in the Midst of a Pandemic with Megan Goldberg, at Urban Affairs Review
Available here
Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, school board members played a prominent role in deciding reopening plans. Using an original large-scale survey of board members, our goal is to understand how the polarized, political context of pandemic responses shaped the decision-making processes of members as they experienced dramatic increases in workload. We find school board members are much more likely to identify at the extremes of partisan identity, as strong Democrats or strong Republicans. How they identified mattered in who they trusted to tell them information, how much control they felt the board should have in the process of reopening plans, and who should interpret data about COVID. If the other party was in power at the state level, members from opposing parties had less trust in state sources. Most school board elections are nonpartisan, but that does not mean that the members themselves do not strongly identify with a party.
What matters in school reopening plans: an analysis of the impact of school board demographics, with Sabrina Harris and Kathryn Miller at Politics, Groups , and Identities
Available here
Abstract: Did the demographic composition of American school boards influence a given school district’s reopening responses and social safety measures to the COVID-19 pandemic? We explore how factors of race and gender of school board members influences how districts implement remote, in-person, or hybridized schooling measures. Using an original data set of 1893 school districts and 11,186 school board members, we test whether the demographic composition of a school board is predictive of school reopening plans and masking policies. We find that race and partisanship are influential in determining the usage of remote instruction and safety measures. Importantly, the congruence between local- and state-level partisanship is also found to be influential in determining the intensity of safety measures. We find that the influence of identity characteristics of school board members is less critical to shaping decision-making processes than the partisanship of a state’s governor. In Democratic states, the governor’s executive orders tend to override the influence school board members’ racial and gender identities, versus in Republican states the school board’s demographic composition is more predictive of school reopening plans and masking policies.
From preschool to politics: Early socialization in Tulsa, with William Gormley, at Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Available here
Abstract:Voting in an election can be a complicated process, requiring both knowledge and motivation. According to the “primacy principle” and theories of “human capital formation,” early childhood learning has the potential to shape attitudes and behaviors later in life. If correct, these theories suggest that early childhood education could help develop skills necessary for voting. Using data from Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), we identify 4033 students who entered kindergarten in the fall of 2006. Approximately half of those students were enrolled in universal pre-K the year before. We then identify which of these students registered to vote and actually voted in the two years after they turned 18. Using propensity score weighting, we find that students enrolled in pre-K were more likely to register to vote and to vote in an election than those not enrolled in pre-K. We explore potential paths through which pre-K might increase civic participation. We find that pre-K increases both cognitive and socio-emotional skills and that an increase in these skills is associated with an increase in registering to vote (cognitive) and actual voting (cognitive and socio-emotional).
School Characteristics and Voting: What Matters in Turnout and Passage, at Urban Affairs Review
Available here
Abstract: Do school characteristics predict the likelihood of turning out to vote on tax referendums for school funding or predict passage of tax referendums for school funding? I rely on publicly available Florida Voter Registration files and connect voters to their closest elementary school. I then aggregate individual data to the precinct level to test what characteristics predict the passage of tax referendums. Pairing the individual level turnout
data with the precinct level data, I find that there are differences in the composition of voters across election types and these voters are responding to different characteristics of schools. While we might expect school characteristics to matter more for special elections, this is not the case. School characteristics matter less in special elections because who is turning out to vote is different in those elections. General elections are the only time in which school performance is statistically related to the percent of yes vote.
Race, school discipline, and magnet schools, with NaLette Brodnax, at AERA Open
Available here
Abstract: School environment plays an important role in student outcomes. Increasingly, research has also highlighted the role school environment plays in the White–Black suspension gap. We test whether magnet schools reduce the White–Black suspension gap using data from Tulsa Public Schools. Using student-level and incident-level data from Tulsa, Oklahoma, we explore whether Black students receive exclusionary discipline at lower rates in magnet schools than in traditional schools compared with White students. Using matching techniques to minimize selection bias, we find that magnet schools in Tulsa are associated with a reduction in the racial suspension gap. In magnet schools in Tulsa, we do not find a racial gap in severity of incident or days assigned.
Partisan Politics and Public Education: Finding the formula for (electoral) success , at State Politics & Policy Quarterly
Available here or the published version here.
Abstract: Do state politicians reward school districts that vote in favor of the party in power more than school districts that vote in favor of opposing party? With large shares of money at the state level to transfer to local governments and the ability to target core voters, it would seem likely that politicians would take advantage of the ability to distribute education funds. However, in understanding how states distribute education funds, little emphasis is given to partisan influences, particularly the congruence between local school districts and the state level. To test this, I collected data at the precinct level within each state, and using mapping software, spatially joined precinct boundaries to school district boundaries. Once this relationship was established, I aggregated precinct level information to school districts to understand the partisan voting patterns within each school district for elections from 2000 to 2010. This article finds evidence that funding formulas are susceptible to political influence and that parties are able to influence the geographic distribution of education funds to core voters.
Exit or Invest: Segregation increases funding for public education, at Journal of Politics
Article can be downloaded here and the data can be found: here. It is also available here.
Abstract: Does segregation help or hurt support for public education? Previous literature has identified diversity, and more recently segregation, as key predictors for spending less on public goods. Because of schools' historical legacy with segregation, segregation could play a very different role in funding public education. To test this, I have collected data on the 11,000 plus school district in the United States from 1995 to 2011. Using multi-level models with a state-school district nested design, I find that white-black segregation leads to more investment in public education while white-Hispanic segregation, as well as segregation by income, has no effect. This result is robust across a broad array of alternative specifications, including an instrumental variable analysis using the number of years after an overturned court desegregation order as an instrument for school segregation. The results imply that segregation is still shaping public education.
Social Transformation and Violence: Evidence from U.S. Reconstruction, with Megan Stewart, at Comparative Politics Study
Available here.
Abstract: How do political actors achieve revolutionary social transformation, and what are the consequences of their efforts? In this paper, we argue that the greater resources allocated to the beneficiaries of transformative social and political schemes, the more successful political actors will be in achieving the change they desire. But success comes at a cost: violence is more likely to emerge when transformative projects succeed, specifically, when they succeed in reducing social hierarchies between historically repressed and privileged communities. Effective reductions to long-standing social inequities trigger resentment among privileged communities leading to violence against repressed communities. Furthermore, because historically repressed communities work to institutionalize and preserve socio-economic gains arising from statebuilding interventions, such gains in status, as well as violence in response to them, persist over the long-term. We quantitatively test our arguments using historical, county-level data on post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction and we supply both quantitative and qualitative evidence for our mechanisms. Our findings support our theory. We thus introduce a new mechanism that causally links social transformation to violence, thereby expanding our understanding of how actors consolidate social orders, and how societies' respond to these efforts.
Dividing lines: The role school district boundaries play in spending inequality for public education at Social Science Quarterly
Available here
Abstract: Do political boundaries, particularly along racial cleavages, contribute to differences in spending on public goods? In explaining differences in per child expenditures across school districts, economic differences are the most cited. Racial segregation often occurs along school district borders and could lead to differences in per child expenditures through concentration of resources in certain districts. To test whether racial segregation across districts impacts inequality in education funding, I have collected data on the 11,000 plus school district and 1,800 counties in the United States from 1995 to 2011. Using a series of panel models, I find that white-black segregation leads to increased variation in per child local revenue within counties. Within these segregated counties, districts with larger black populations collect less in local revenue but have a higher tax burden.
Do Better Schools Help to Prolong Early Childhood Education Effects? (with William Gormley and Sara Anderson), at Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Available Here
Abstract: As scholars investigate factors to prolong early childhood education (ECE) effects on student achievement, a neglected hypothesis is that magnet school attendance promotes this goal. We test this premise, using data from 1,844 students who attended kindergarten in the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) in 2006 and who were identifiable in the school district a decade later. Approximately half of those students attended an ECE program. Using propensity score weighting with multiple imputation, we find that ECE alumni are more likely to attend a magnet middle school and a magnet high school. We also find that magnet middle school attendance yields higher test scores, after controlling for multiple variables. Under the right conditions, magnet schools could help public schools to sustain short-term gains from ECE for a diverse cross-section of students. We discuss results within a broader context of mechanisms to sustain ECE effects.
The Hispanic Extracurricular Participation Gap in Middle School (with William Gormley) at Social Science Quarterly, 2018
Available Here
Abstract: Some scholars have noted a gap in extra-curricular (EC) participation between Hispanic students and other students (Darling, Caldwell & Smith 2005). But why exactly does this gap exist? One possibility is that Hispanic parents, whose education levels are relatively low, do not value EC activity as much as other parents. Another possibility is that limited financial resources make it difficult for Hispanic parents to finance EC activities that require special fees (like sports or marching bands). A third possibility is that Hispanic students have limited financial resources that limit time available for EC activity (e.g., girls have to baby sit). A fourth possibility is that there is less access to activities for Hispanic students. We analyze membership in EC activities across seven different activity types for 381 Hispanic students and 447 white students in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We find that parental awareness, as measured by mother’s education, is the dominant predictor of EC activity. We also find that EC activity predicts academic outcomes in middle school, even after controlling for early academic success.
Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections (with Michele Swers) at Politics & Gender, 2016
Article can be found here.
Abstract: Research indicates that fundraising is not an impediment to women candidates because women raise just as much money as men after accounting for seat status. However, previous research focuses solely on general election candidates. By examining both primary and general election candidates, we find both gender and partisan differences in fundraising. While incumbency, competitiveness, and candidate quality predict fundraising in the general election, we show that Democratic women raise more money than their male counterparts in the primary election. However, Republican women do not enjoy greater fundraising success compared with their male counterparts, and in limited cases, being a Republican woman can be an obstacle to fundraising in the primary election.
Additional Research
Center for Research on Children in the United States (CROCUS), Georgetown University
As a fellow at CROCUS, I have worked on varies projects relating to the long-term effects of pre-k. I have worked on policy briefs, including "Do Middle Class Families Benefit from Pre-k?". A more detailed description of on-going projects and presentations can be found here: CROCUS WEBSITE
RAND Corporation
I have worked on a variety of topics at RAND including education, transportation, and Army Force Structure. Publications can be found here: RAND Website
Center for Research on Children in the United States (CROCUS), Georgetown University
As a fellow at CROCUS, I have worked on varies projects relating to the long-term effects of pre-k. I have worked on policy briefs, including "Do Middle Class Families Benefit from Pre-k?". A more detailed description of on-going projects and presentations can be found here: CROCUS WEBSITE
RAND Corporation
I have worked on a variety of topics at RAND including education, transportation, and Army Force Structure. Publications can be found here: RAND Website