Understanding education: Three essays analyzing unintended outcomes of school policies

The goal of my study is to examine specific school policies to determine if unintentional consequences result from these policies. Specifically, I focus on two main issues as they relate to student and teachers outcomes. I begin by looking at the effect of incapacitating juveniles in school as a force influencing juvenile crime. I exploit teacher strikes as a measure of unexpected student absence from school to measure the effect of school in preventing juvenile crime. My data set consists of information on every juvenile arrest made in Washington State over a 22-year period. I show that previous estimates of the effect of school incapacitation are systematically underestimated, that criminal activity increases as students continue to remain out of school. I also show that these increases in crime reflect an increase in overall crime, not a displacement. Lastly, I show that repeat juvenile offenders are more likely to have committed their first crime on a strike day, relative to a normal school day.; Chapters 2 and 3 of the study focus on the role of teacher networks in influencing teacher mobility. Specifically, my study develops a model of teacher networks that describes how teachers assemble networks through professional development activities (PDAs) and how these networks provide an effective sorting mechanism for public school teachers. I empirically test the existence of teacher networks with 2 distinct datasets. The dataset in Chapter 2 is comprised of various reports covering all 67 Florida school districts. Besides examining how professional development affects teacher movement, I am able to exploit the macro nature of the data to compare district characteristics (such as differences in compensation levels and school district density) to examine how these factors also influence teacher mobility. The dataset in Chapter 3 uses survey data from the "Schools and Staffing Survey" and includes over 17,000 teachers. The high-powered nature of this dataset allows me to identify specific details, such as teacher salary incentives, individual network strength and union membership. Ultimately I conclude that teacher networks are an integral part of a teacher's transfer decision and have a sizable impact on intra-district teacher mobility.