Coursework: ITP Seminar

Seminars are held weekly on Fridays in the Educational Sciences Building in Rm. 259, unless noted otherwise

While this is a required course for ITP fellows, members of the university and wider community are welcome to attend.

October 10, 2025
  • ITP Seminar: Thad Domina "Creating Classes: Elementary school classroom assignments and their implications"

    October 10, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    ABSTRACT

    While tracking is ubiquitous and well-documented in secondary education, limited evidence exists regarding cross-classroom clustering in American elementary schools. In this paper, we investigate the distribution of students across classrooms in North Carolina elementary schools. Consistent with qualitative evidence suggesting that educators seek to create demographically balanced classrooms, we find that students are distributed quite evenly across their schools’ classrooms based on race, ethnicity, and family economic background. However, we find that some schools create classrooms in which students are clustered based on their prior achievement as well as their eligibility for gifted education or special education services. This clustering is most prominent in large schools, schools with highly experienced teachers, and schools in which parents have a high degree of influence. This skills-based classroom clustering is associated within equalities in student access to high-quality teaching.

    See more details

October 17, 2025
  • ITP Seminar: Emily Rauscher, Professor of Sociology at Brown University

    October 17, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    Emily Rauscher, Professor of Sociology at Brown University
    Title: Priceless Benefits: Effects of School Spending onChild Mortality

    Abstract:

    The benefits of school spending go beyond academic and economic outcomes to improve child health and well-being. We use close school district tax elections (1995-2018), National Vital Statistics mortality data, and a regression discontinuity approach to estimate effects of a quasi-random increase in school spending on county-level child mortality. We find that increased school spending from passing a tax election reduces child mortality. Districts that narrowly passed a proposed tax increase spent an additional $262 per pupil, mostly on instruction and salaries, and had 4% lower child mortality after spending increased, equivalent to -3.6 fewer child deaths per 100,000 children for each $1,000 increase in spending per pupil. We replicate our study using progressive school finance reforms and county-level difference-in-differences analyses and find consistent results. Estimates predicting potential mechanisms suggest that lower child mortality partly reflects increases in the number of teachers and counselors, higher teacher salaries, and improved student engagement. 

    See more details

October 22, 2025
  • ITP Happy Hour

    October 22, 2025  4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
    Memorial Union unless weather dictates otherwise

    See more details

October 24, 2025
  • ITP Seminar - TBD

    October 24, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    See more details

October 31, 2025
  • ITP Seminar

    October 31, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    See more details

November 7, 2025
  • ITP Seminar

    November 7, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    See more details

November 14, 2025
  • ITP Seminar

    November 14, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    See more details

November 21, 2025
  • ITP Seminar - Anna Haskins, Professor at University of Notre Dame

    November 21, 2025  12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
    WCER, Room 259

    See more details

November 27, 2025
  • Thanksgiving recess

    November 27, 2025 - November 30, 2025  

    See more details