Using Data from Natural Experiments, Researcher Documents Social Returns from Educational Investments

Emily Rauscher, PhD

Want to narrow the achievement gap? Try investing in education. Build a new school or a new wing. Or make other capital improvements, like fixing the HVAC.

It will take about six years, explains Emily Rauscher, an associate professor of sociology at Brown University; but in that time, school districts that passed bond measures for capital improvements by and large saw a roughly one-third reduction in the achievement gap between students from well-to-do backgrounds