Michal Kurlaender
Biographic Data
| ID | 372766 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michal Kurlaender |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michal |
| FAMILY NAME | Kurlaender |
| SIGNATURE | KURLAENDER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
College Canceled: What Happened to California’s High School Graduating Class of 2020
Using individual-level administrative data from California linked to survey data, this study explores how and why recent high school graduates’ college trajectories may have been altered by the pandemic. We find sizable negative effects on college enrollment for the California high school graduating class of 2020. Similar to national trends, we find these enrollment declines were largest in the community college sector and for underrepresented mi…
Improving the Community College Transfer Pathway to the Baccalaureate: The Effect of California's Associate Degree for Transfer
The transfer between two‐year and four‐year colleges is a critical path to baccalaureate attainment. Yet students face a number of barriers in transfer pathways, including a lack of coherent coordination and articulation between their community colleges and four‐year institutions, resulting in excess units and increased time to degree. In this paper we evaluate the impact of California's Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, which aimed to cre…
Capacity and Flexibility in Community College CTE Programs: Program Offerings and Student Success
Is Early Start a Better Start? Evaluating California State University's Early Start Remediation Policy
Remediation has long been a costly way to address the misalignment between K‐12 and higher education. In 2011, the California State University (CSU), the nation's largest public four‐year university system, enacted Early Start , requiring students needing remediation to enroll in such courses in the summer before their freshman year. We estimate the impact of Early Start summer remediation relative to both traditional fall remediation and relativ…
Curriculum Reform in The Common Core Era: Evaluating Elementary Math Textbooks Across Six U.S. States
Can a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we fo…
The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality
Michal Kurlaender, Scott Carrell, Jacob Jackson, The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1, Higher Education Effectiveness (April 2016), pp. 174-190
K–12 Postsecondary Alignment and School Accountability: Investigating High School Responses to California’s Early Assessment Program
State K–12 assessments may soon include measures for college readiness, as California’s already do. We seek to understand how California’s Early Assessment Program (EAP, designed to assess high school juniors’ college readiness in English and math) may have influenced overall school-level college readiness and state accountability outcomes. Using administrative data, we first examine variation in EAP participation across California’s public high …
Assessing the Promise of California's Early Assessment Program for Community Colleges
This article focuses on California's efforts to improve the alignment between K-12 and postsecondary schooling through the Early Assessment Program (EAP). Implemented in 2004, the EAP was designed to give high school students information about their academic preparedness for postsecondary education and to encourage teachers to teach for college readiness. I describe the EAP and its evolution and presence at California's community colleges. I then…
College Readiness and College Completion at Broad Access Four-Year Institutions
Many students arrive at college unprepared to do college-level work, facing a host of college readiness assessments and developmental education coursework. In this article, we examine how a student's readiness to take college classes upon entry to the university is related to four longer term postsecondary outcomes. We utilize a unique longitudinal dataset of the census of first-time freshmen at the nation's largest public 4-year state postsecond…
Mismatch and the Paternalistic Justification for Selective College Admissions
Although some scholars report that all students are better served by attending more prestigious postsecondary institutions, others have argued that students are better off attending colleges where they are about average in terms of academic ability and suffer worse outcomes if they attend schools that are 'out of their league' at which they are 'overmatched.' The latter argument is most frequently deployed as a paternalistic justification for end…
Postsecondary preparation and remediation: Examining the effect of the early assessment program at California State University
In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college-level work at California State University campuses, affects their college-going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from California State University,–Sacramento and the California Department of Education, we find that partici…
Do Community Colleges Provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree?
Community colleges have become an important entryway for students intending to complete baccalaureate degrees. However, many question the viability of the transfer function and wonder whether students suffer a penalty for starting at 2-year institutions. The authors examined how the outcomes of community college entrants compared with those of similar students who initially entered 4-year institutions within the Ohio public higher education syste…
Measuring School Racial Composition and Student Outcomes in a Multiracial Society
This article examines the challenges of measuring school racial composition in a multiracial society, particularly the difficulty in specifying school racial composition when there are large numbers of students representing multiple racial groups. We employ two specifications of school racial composition to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of each approach and discuss how alternative conceptualizations of school racial composi…
Mismatch and the Paternalistic Justification for Selective College Admissions
Although some scholars report that all students are better served by attending more prestigious postsecondary institutions, others have argued that students are better off attending colleges where they are about average in terms of academic ability and suffer worse outcomes if they attend schools that are 'out of their league' at which they are 'overmatched.' The latter argument is most frequently deployed as a paternalistic justification for end…
Postsecondary preparation and remediation: Examining the effect of the early assessment program at California State University
In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college-level work at California State University campuses, affects their college-going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from California State University,–Sacramento and the California Department of Education, we find that partici…
Measuring School Racial Composition and Student Outcomes in a Multiracial Society
This article examines the challenges of measuring school racial composition in a multiracial society, particularly the difficulty in specifying school racial composition when there are large numbers of students representing multiple racial groups. We employ two specifications of school racial composition to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of each approach and discuss how alternative conceptualizations of school racial composi…
College Readiness and College Completion at Broad Access Four-Year Institutions
Many students arrive at college unprepared to do college-level work, facing a host of college readiness assessments and developmental education coursework. In this article, we examine how a student's readiness to take college classes upon entry to the university is related to four longer term postsecondary outcomes. We utilize a unique longitudinal dataset of the census of first-time freshmen at the nation's largest public 4-year state postsecond…
Assessing the Promise of California's Early Assessment Program for Community Colleges
This article focuses on California's efforts to improve the alignment between K-12 and postsecondary schooling through the Early Assessment Program (EAP). Implemented in 2004, the EAP was designed to give high school students information about their academic preparedness for postsecondary education and to encourage teachers to teach for college readiness. I describe the EAP and its evolution and presence at California's community colleges. I then…
Curriculum Reform in The Common Core Era: Evaluating Elementary Math Textbooks Across Six U.S. States
Can a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we fo…
Improving the Community College Transfer Pathway to the Baccalaureate: The Effect of California's Associate Degree for Transfer
The transfer between two‐year and four‐year colleges is a critical path to baccalaureate attainment. Yet students face a number of barriers in transfer pathways, including a lack of coherent coordination and articulation between their community colleges and four‐year institutions, resulting in excess units and increased time to degree. In this paper we evaluate the impact of California's Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, which aimed to cre…
The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality
Michal Kurlaender, Scott Carrell, Jacob Jackson, The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1, Higher Education Effectiveness (April 2016), pp. 174-190
K–12 Postsecondary Alignment and School Accountability: Investigating High School Responses to California’s Early Assessment Program
State K–12 assessments may soon include measures for college readiness, as California’s already do. We seek to understand how California’s Early Assessment Program (EAP, designed to assess high school juniors’ college readiness in English and math) may have influenced overall school-level college readiness and state accountability outcomes. Using administrative data, we first examine variation in EAP participation across California’s public high …
Measuring School Racial Composition and Student Outcomes in a Multiracial Society
This article examines the challenges of measuring school racial composition in a multiracial society, particularly the difficulty in specifying school racial composition when there are large numbers of students representing multiple racial groups. We employ two specifications of school racial composition to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of each approach and discuss how alternative conceptualizations of school racial composi…
Do Community Colleges Provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree?
Community colleges have become an important entryway for students intending to complete baccalaureate degrees. However, many question the viability of the transfer function and wonder whether students suffer a penalty for starting at 2-year institutions. The authors examined how the outcomes of community college entrants compared with those of similar students who initially entered 4-year institutions within the Ohio public higher education syste…
Postsecondary preparation and remediation: Examining the effect of the early assessment program at California State University
In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college-level work at California State University campuses, affects their college-going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from California State University,–Sacramento and the California Department of Education, we find that partici…
Mismatch and the Paternalistic Justification for Selective College Admissions
Although some scholars report that all students are better served by attending more prestigious postsecondary institutions, others have argued that students are better off attending colleges where they are about average in terms of academic ability and suffer worse outcomes if they attend schools that are 'out of their league' at which they are 'overmatched.' The latter argument is most frequently deployed as a paternalistic justification for end…
Assessing the Promise of California's Early Assessment Program for Community Colleges
This article focuses on California's efforts to improve the alignment between K-12 and postsecondary schooling through the Early Assessment Program (EAP). Implemented in 2004, the EAP was designed to give high school students information about their academic preparedness for postsecondary education and to encourage teachers to teach for college readiness. I describe the EAP and its evolution and presence at California's community colleges. I then…
College Readiness and College Completion at Broad Access Four-Year Institutions
Many students arrive at college unprepared to do college-level work, facing a host of college readiness assessments and developmental education coursework. In this article, we examine how a student's readiness to take college classes upon entry to the university is related to four longer term postsecondary outcomes. We utilize a unique longitudinal dataset of the census of first-time freshmen at the nation's largest public 4-year state postsecond…
The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality
Michal Kurlaender, Scott Carrell, Jacob Jackson, The Promises and Pitfalls of Measuring Community College Quality, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1, Higher Education Effectiveness (April 2016), pp. 174-190
K–12 Postsecondary Alignment and School Accountability: Investigating High School Responses to California’s Early Assessment Program
State K–12 assessments may soon include measures for college readiness, as California’s already do. We seek to understand how California’s Early Assessment Program (EAP, designed to assess high school juniors’ college readiness in English and math) may have influenced overall school-level college readiness and state accountability outcomes. Using administrative data, we first examine variation in EAP participation across California’s public high …
Is Early Start a Better Start? Evaluating California State University's Early Start Remediation Policy
Remediation has long been a costly way to address the misalignment between K‐12 and higher education. In 2011, the California State University (CSU), the nation's largest public four‐year university system, enacted Early Start , requiring students needing remediation to enroll in such courses in the summer before their freshman year. We estimate the impact of Early Start summer remediation relative to both traditional fall remediation and relativ…
Curriculum Reform in The Common Core Era: Evaluating Elementary Math Textbooks Across Six U.S. States
Can a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we fo…
Capacity and Flexibility in Community College CTE Programs: Program Offerings and Student Success
Improving the Community College Transfer Pathway to the Baccalaureate: The Effect of California's Associate Degree for Transfer
The transfer between two‐year and four‐year colleges is a critical path to baccalaureate attainment. Yet students face a number of barriers in transfer pathways, including a lack of coherent coordination and articulation between their community colleges and four‐year institutions, resulting in excess units and increased time to degree. In this paper we evaluate the impact of California's Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, which aimed to cre…
College Canceled: What Happened to California’s High School Graduating Class of 2020
Using individual-level administrative data from California linked to survey data, this study explores how and why recent high school graduates’ college trajectories may have been altered by the pandemic. We find sizable negative effects on college enrollment for the California high school graduating class of 2020. Similar to national trends, we find these enrollment declines were largest in the community college sector and for underrepresented mi…
Psychology (12 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (10 works) · Mathematics education (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Higher education (9 works) · School Choice and Performance (9 works) · Medical education (8 works) · Medicine (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Community college (6 works)