Dan Goldhaber

AIR Vice President and Director, CALDER

Dan Goldhaber is an AIR vice president and director of Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at AIR. He is also an affiliate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, the director of the Center for Education Data & Research, and the co-editor of Education Finance and Policy.

Dr. Goldhaber's work focuses on issues of educational productivity and reform at the K-12 level; the broad array of human capital policies that influence the composition, distribution, and quality of teachers in the workforce; and connections between students' K-12 experiences and postsecondary outcomes. Topics of published work in this area include studies of the stability of value-added measures of teachers, the effects of teacher qualifications and quality on student achievement, and the impact of teacher pay structure and licensure on the teacher labor market. Previous work has covered topics such as the relative efficiency of public and private schools, and the effects of accountability systems and market competition on K-12 schooling.

Dr. Goldhaber's research has been regularly published in leading peer-reviewed economic and education journals such as: American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Policy and Management, Journal of Urban Economics, Economics of Education Review, Education Finance and Policy, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. The findings from these articles have been covered in more widely accessible media outlets such as National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and Education Week. Dr. Goldhaber previously served as an elected member of the Alexandria City School Board from 1997-2002, and as an associate editor of Economics of Education Review.

Ph.D. and M.S., Labor Economics, Cornell University; B.A., Economics, University of Vermont

Contact Dan Goldhaber

21 Oct 2022

Taking advanced courses in high school predicts a broad array of positive outcomes, yet students from certain backgrounds have been excluded from these courses historically. To address this problem, more than 60 districts in Washington state implemented a policy that automatically enrolled all qualified high school students in advanced coursework. ...

Supporting Students and Schools: Promising Practices to Get Back on Track

22 Jun 2022

AIR Vice President Dan Goldhaber addressed the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on June 22, 2022. In a hearing entitled Supporting Students and Schools: Promising Practices to Get Back on Track, Goldhaber testified on the pandemic's effect on student learning and school district recovery efforts. ...

Image of student getting temperature taken by a teacher

How Can Community COVID-19 Rates Inform Decisions on Reopening Schools?

09 Feb 2021

COVID-19 has profoundly disrupted K–12 schooling. A working paper from AIR’s National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) suggests the prevalence of COVID in the community could be an important factor in deciding whether public schools reopen or remain open.

To What Extent Does In-Person Schooling Contribute to the Spread of COVID-19? Evidence from Michigan and Washington

30 Dec 2020

The instructional modality of schools (in-person, hybrid, or remote instruction) has implications not only for the health and safety of students and staff, but also student learning and the degree to which parents can engage in job activities. In this working paper, we consider the role of instructional modality in ...

Career and Technical Education in High School and Postsecondary Pathways in Washington State

13 Nov 2019

This paper describes the postsecondary transitions of students taking CTE courses in high school using administrative data on one cohort of high school graduates in Washington State.

Aspiring Teachers Deserve Time with a Mentor Before Going It Alone

22 Jul 2019

In this commentary published in the Hill, Dan Goldhaber, AIR vice president and director of CALDER, and John C. White, Louisiana state superintendent of education, discuss the importance of formal mentoring for teachers during their career training.

Career and Technical Education, Inclusion, and Postsecondary Outcomes for Students With Disabilities

06 Sep 2017

Each year, nearly 6.5 million public school students receive special education services as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; the Act's 2004 reauthorization placed greater emphasis on using these funds to improve the postsecondary outcomes of students receiving special education services. This study used longitudinal data on all ...

Evaluating Prospective Teachers: Testing the Predictive Validity of the edTPA

21 May 2016

Given the rapid policy diffusion of the edTPA, a performance-based, subject-specific assessment of teacher candidates, it is surprising that there is currently no existing large-scale research linking it to outcomes for inservice teachers and their students. This report uses longitudinal data from Washington State that include information on teacher candidates’ ...

Despite Ruling, Tenure Laws are Bad for Students

28 Apr 2016

This month, a California appeals court overturned a judge’s decision that challenged the state's tenure laws, teacher dismissal practices, and the widespread practice of “last in, first out” layoffs. But, the authors of this commentary contend, research shows that for the sake of students, principals and school leaders require flexibility ...

The Common Core Conundrum: To What Extent Should We Worry That Changes to Assessments and Standards Will Affect Test-Based Measures of Teacher Performance?

31 Mar 2016

Using administrative longitudinal data from five states, this report looks at how value-added measures of teacher performance are affected by changes in state standards and assessments. In most cases, the researchers found that measures of teacher value added are similarly stable in transition years and nontransition years. ...

Does the Match Matter? Exploring Whether Student Teaching Experiences Affect Teacher Effectiveness and Attrition

03 Feb 2016

It is well documented that teacher quality is the most important school-based factor associated with improving student achievement. Researchers found that the school context in which student teaching occurs has important implications for the later outcomes of teachers and their students.

Pension Structure and Employee Turnover: Evidence from a Large Public Pension System

11 Sep 2015

Public pension systems in many U.S. states face large funding shortfalls. Movement toward defined contribution (DC) pension structures may reduce the likelihood of future shortfalls. We address some limitations of the existing literature by studying public-sector employees who are enrolled in either a defined benefit (DB) plan or hybrid DB-DC ...

Crossing the Border? Exploring the Cross-State Mobility of the Teacher Workforce

10 Sep 2015

A considerable amount of research exists on the mobility of teachers within states, but very little is known about the extent to which teachers move from employment in public schools in one state to another. This paper shows levels of cross-state mobility that are drastically lower than levels of within-state ...

A Foot in the Door: Exploring the Role of Student Teaching Assignments in Teachers’ Initial Job Placements

10 Sep 2015

The federal government recently directed states to develop plans to reduce inequity in the distribution of teacher quality across schools. Examination of data from Washington state suggests that prospective teachers’ student teaching positions are much more predictive of their first teaching positions than their hometowns, and that more qualified prospective ...

Research vs. Conventional Wisdom: Teachers and Teacher Labor Markets

18 Aug 2015

Research findings about teachers and teacher labor markets sometimes seem to defy conventional wisdom. Dan Goldhaber, director of CALDER at the American Institutes for Research and the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, explores common assumptions in three Education Week guest blog posts. ...

Research vs. Conventional Wisdom III: Competition for Teacher Labor

14 Aug 2015

Research findings about teachers and teacher labor markets sometimes seem to defy conventional wisdom. Dan Goldhaber, director of CALDER at the American Institutes for Research and the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, explores competition for teacher labor in this last of three Education Week ...

Research vs. Conventional Wisdom II: Teacher Jobs Lost During the Great Recession

12 Aug 2015

Research findings about teachers and teacher labor markets sometimes seem to defy conventional wisdom. Dan Goldhaber, director of CALDER at the American Institutes for Research and the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, and Katharine Strunk, associate professor of education and policy at the University ...

Research vs. Conventional Wisdom I: Teacher Attrition

10 Aug 2015

Research findings about teachers and teacher labor markets sometimes seem to defy conventional wisdom. Dan Goldhaber, director of CALDER at the American Institutes for Research and the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, explores teacher attrition in this first of three Education Week guest blog ...

History and Logic to the Rescue in Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind

23 Mar 2015

More than a dozen years after it was reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is under hot debate. Why the heat? Although the act has boosted student achievement (a major goal), not all students demonstrated proficiency on state tests by ...

Investing in Teacher Pay Could Spur Big Gains for California Students

09 Mar 2015

In an OpEd for the Los Angeles Times, AIR expert Dan Goldhaber advises that "Educational opportunity is knocking," urging California to try out the high-pay/high-performance teacher model. "If results here match those in New York, California will have a path forward to achieve big student gains for a fairly ...

It’s Getting Harder and Harder to Attract Talent Into the Teaching Profession. Nope, That’s Not What Evidence Suggests.

19 Sep 2014

Is adopting academic standards and increasing pressure on teachers has made it more difficult to attract academically talented people into teaching? Not according to Dan Goldhaber, who cites his own research in this blog post, showing that the average SAT score of college graduates who went on to become teachers ...

Think Again: It’s Getting Harder and Harder to Attract Talent Into the Teaching Profession. Nope, That’s Not What Evidence Suggests.

17 Sep 2014

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is on record saying that teaching is “harder now than ever before, with less and less respect.” The view that teaching’s curb appeal isn’t what it used to be is widely shared, but is it right?

AIR in the News

11 Jul 2023

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Dan Goldhaber

AIR in the News

‘Education’s Long COVID’: New Data Shows Recovery Stalled for Most Students

CT Offering Math Tutoring Grants for Middle and High Schoolers

The Teaching Profession is Facing A Post-Pandemic Crisis

Report: Some Va. Teacher Prep Programs Miss Mark in Literacy Instruction

NAEP Scores ‘Flashing Red’ After a Lost Generation of Learning for 13-Year-Olds

Which Teaching Jobs Are Easier or Harder to Staff? New Data Has Some Answers

‘Achievement Gap’ vs. ‘Education Debt’: Why the Language of Testing Matters

Veteran Teachers: Why Some Stay in Tough Classrooms

Veteran Teachers: Why Some Stay in Tough Classrooms

LAUSD Pitched Students An Expensive Experiment To Get Higher Grades. Most Turned It Down