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Assessing School District Decision-Making: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

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  • Alvin Christian
  • Brian Jacob
  • John D. Singleton

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts’ choices of learning modality—whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction—over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning mode and COVID-19 cases for Ohio school districts. We show that districts respond on the margin to health risks: all else equal, a marginal increase in new cases reduces the probability that a district offers in-person instruction the next week. Moreover, this negative response is magnified when the district was in-person the prior week and attenuates in magnitude over the school year. These findings are consistent with districts learning from experience about the effect of in-person learning on disease transmission in schools. We also find evidence that districts are influenced by the decisions of their peers.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvin Christian & Brian Jacob & John D. Singleton, 2022. "Assessing School District Decision-Making: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 30520, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30520
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Heise, 2023. "The distribution of in‐person public K‐12 education in the time of COVID: An empirical perspective," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), pages 305-338, June.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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