Math achievement plays a pivotal role in students’ success in school and beyond. Algebra, in particular, serves as a crucial gateway: it increases...
Benjamin Backes
Ben Backes is currently a Researcher with the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research Program at the American Institutes for Research. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from UC San Diego in 2012 with a dissertation focusing on the impact of statewide bans on the use of racial preferences in college admissions.
Dr. Backes has published papers on topics including whether affirmative action bans depressed minority college enrollment rates and whether the bans discouraged minority students from applying to college. He is currently exploring how universities changed their admissions rules in response to affirmative action bans, and how these new admissions rules affected students’ human capital investment decisions prior to entering college.
Related Publications
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This CALDER research brief builds on pioneering research by the Measures of Effective Teaching Project (Kane et al., 2013) and Jackson (2018) to...
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Given math’s importance, states are adopting a range of K12 policies to improve math outcomes. As these and other policies unfold, policymakers...
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Most states responded to the onset of the pandemic by temporarily granting teachers Emergency licenses. These licenses allowed teachers to work in...
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Most states responded to the onset of the pandemic by temporarily granting teachers Emergency licenses. These licenses allowed teachers to work in...
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Departmentalized instruction, in which teachers specialize in one or more core subjects and instruct multiple groups of students in a day, has...
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Graduates of special education teacher education programs can teach in a range of special education settings, raising the potential that their...
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The onset of the pandemic in spring 2020 substantially disrupted routes into teaching and offered a unique opportunity to study this process with...
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How to Measure a Teacher: The Influence of Test and Nontest Value-Added on Long-Run Student Outcomes
This paper examines how different measures of teacher quality are related to students’ long-run educational trajectories. We estimate teachers’...
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This paper examines the impact of Teach For America (TFA) on following-year student test and non-test outcomes in Miami-Dade County Public Schools...
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Student-teacher relationships are at the core of student experiences in schools and, arguably, fundamental to influencing student outcomes. Using...
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Taking advanced courses in high school predicts a broad array of positive postsecondary and labor market outcomes. Yet students from historically...
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Linkage Between Fields of Concentration in High School Career-Technical Education and College Majors
This study examines the extent to which students obtain postsecondary credentials in the CTE fields of focus they choose in high school. Using...
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What does it mean for students to be in a gifted program? While about 7% of students nationally participate in gifted programs, relatively little...
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A number of school districts and states have implemented transition intervention programs designed to help high school students graduate ready for...
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Prior work has documented a substantial penalty associated with taking the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC...
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This study adds to the currently limited evidence base on the efficacy of interventions targeting non-college-ready high school students by...
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Nearly two dozen states now administer online exams. These tests have real consequences: their results feed into accountability systems, which...
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Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture (OC) initiative provides a suite of models aimed at extending the reach of highly effective teachers...
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UTeach is a well-known, university-based program designed to increase the number of high-quality STEM teachers in the workforce. Despite...
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Using administrative longitudinal data from five states, we study how value-added measures of teacher performance are affected...
Most public school teachers in the United States are enrolled in defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Using administrative micro data from four...
Recent evidence on teacher productivity suggests teachers meaningfully influence noncognitive student outcomes that are commonly overlooked by...
We examine the extent to which clustering large numbers of Teach For America (TFA) corps members in a limited number of low-performing schools was...
In this paper we examine a range of postsecondary education and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on minorities and/or disadvantaged...
A sizeable body of evidence has documented the effectiveness of Teach For America (TFA) corps members at raising the mathematics test scores of...
This paper examines how banning affirmative action in university admissions affects both overall academic achievement and the racial gap in...
This paper assesses the extent to which schools in the University of California (UC) system were able to restore racial diversity among admitted...
In the News
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June 6, 2018EducationDive
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April 28, 2018Education Week
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February 12, 2018The 74
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March 30, 2017eSchool News
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June 23, 2016Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard (Blog)
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May 25, 2016Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard (Blog)
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March 14, 2016The 74
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January 21, 2016US News and World Report
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January 12, 2016US News and World Report
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December 8, 2015The Telegraph
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March 2, 2015Education Week
Area of Expertise
- Labor Economics
- Public Economics
- Education Economics