David D. Liebowitz

 Assistant Professor of Educational Methodology, Policy and LeadershipUniversity of Oregon

Working Papers

Who are the students schools frequently suspend? (with Havisha Khurana)

Disparities in the rates of exclusionary school discipline practices have been stubbornly persistent for at least the past 40 years. While the overall pattern of suspensions is important, suspension events are not distributed uniformly---a small number of students account for the vast majority of suspensions. In this paper, we draw on 12 years of Oregon state administrative data to describe the individual and school characteristics of students whom schools frequently suspend. We find that schools frequently suspend students from low-family-income backgrounds, students receiving special education services and Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native students at between 33 and 56 percent higher rates than would otherwise be predicted given these students' observable characteristics. Further, segregated, majority non-White schools frequently suspend Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native students at higher rates than would be otherwise predicted given their observable characteristics.

Working paper: coming soon

How principals shape teacher racial composition (with Brendan Bartanen and Elc Estrera)

Increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the teacher workforce remains an important goal for policymakers and school districts. However, our understanding of the labor market dynamics that shape the racial composition of the teacher workforce remains underdeveloped. Using data from the Wake County Public School System, we replicate existing findings showing that school principals increase the share of same-race teachers in their school. We then extend these findings by leveraging detailed information on applications to teaching vacancies, requests to transfer schools, and resignation reasons. The preferences of both teachers and principals appear to drive the same-race compositional effect and, in particular, principals appear to hire same-race applicants at substantially higher rates.

Working paper: coming soon