Working Paper: NBER ID: w30520
Authors: 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.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: H0; H10; H30; I20; I21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| A marginal increase in COVID-19 cases (F69) | Reduction in the likelihood that a district offers in-person instruction (I21) |
| Negative response to health risks (I12) | Greater when districts were previously in-person (H79) |
| Decisions of peer districts (D79) | Influence on a district's decision to offer in-person instruction (I21) |
| Pandemic severity (F44) | Likelihood of in-person instruction diminishes over the school year (I21) |