Sofía Wilson

In the last school year, after years of controversy, San Francisco schools fielded pilots that reintroduced Algebra to 8th grade. A preregistered, quasi-experimental study by Elizabeth Huffaker and me indicates the major pilots were largely successful. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/u...

VERSION 2.0 of the Segregation Tracking Project is here! New data on racial and economic segregation between neighborhoods and schools over the last 30+ years for every school district, metro area, state, county, congressional district (new!), and more! edopportunity.org/segregation/

Horrifying. ICE confirms measles outbreak at Dilley family detention center. www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-dil...

To ring in the new year, I'm excited to announce the launch of the Politics of Education Lab (PEdL) at the Stanford GSE. The goal is to advance understanding of the political dimensions of education policymaking to help policymakers and practitioners strengthen school systems. pedl.stanford.edu

Fabulous postdoc opportunity at Stanford to work on the politics of education with one of the best @bethschueler.bsky.social postdocs.stanford.edu/prospective/...

@stanford.edu University invites nominations & applications for the position of Dean of @stanfordeducation.bsky.social. We seek individuals with outstanding scholarly & professional careers who have demonstrated potential for academic & administrative leadership. jobs.chronicle.com/job/37933847...

Very concerned how these federal policy changes will impact vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks — with consequences to child health, parental workforce participation, and schooling. See our working paper for impact of recent measles outbreak on student absences: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1358

For context, this drop in attendance rates related to the measles outbreak (about 93% to 90%) is almost as large as the initial drop in TX attendance rates from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic (95% in 2018-19 to 91% in 2021-22). (TX attendance trends over time here: www.aei.org/research-pro...)

Great coverage of my new report highlighting ICE's disproportionate targeting on Latinos in New York and around the country.

Woah. Argentina's 1990s preschool expansion program appears to have been a smashing success. The program increased high school completion by a whole 11.9 percentage points. The authors estimate that for every $1 spent, the preschool expansion generated about $11 in benefits.

Nationwide, the supply of infant and toddler #ECE does not meet demand, and the costs of care are #unaffordable for many #families. Curious about the status in your state? Check out our new @urbaninstitute.bsky.social snapshots! www.urban.org/data-tools/s...

Excited to see everyone in Chicago for #AEFP2026!

I 💙 you california

Pleased to see our research on the pandemic’s unequal impact on girls’ and boys’ test scores covered by The Harvard Gazette. The math gender gap is now larger than at any point in the past 50 years. Our evidence points to out-of-school factors as potential drivers: news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

👉 Our new paper uses daily mobility data to show that spatial isolation is much more common today among those living in advantaged neighborhoods than the converse. 👩🏻‍💻 Lots of massive data wrangling and careful assumptions about mobility data needed - but check it out here! doi.org/10.1177/0042...

Deeply concerned about the trauma and developmental harm this admin is inflicting on students. Local news reporting absenteeism rate post ICE raid doubled relative to its rate from prior year in Charlotte. What @tomdee.bsky.social found in Central Valley, CA occurring in many cities throughout US.

Girls’ test scores dropped more than boys’ post pandemic—but not everywhere. We use 15 years of data from 7k+ districts to understand why, and what this might teach us about how societal shocks impact gender disparities in ed outcomes. Hear sean present our findings tomorrow: lnkd.in/eEe-DTND

Fascinating, important work with novel dataset.

Why is this economics? We show how backlash to the most significant social policy since the abolition of slavery -- school integration --reshaped markets, reallocated resources, and reduced human capital. Read the paper 👇 (P.S. I'm presenting this at APPAM this weekend! Come say hi!) 12/12

Nice summary of our paper and related work by @tomdee.bsky.social and @kslungaardmumma.bsky.social here. www.chalkbeat.org/2025/11/10/i...

Hi folks attending #2025APPAM #APPAM2025! Excited to see many of you in Seattle this week. As usual, I am organizing a very informal happy hour for education policy folks at the conference to get together: Fri 11/14 starting at 6pm at Seattle Beer Co on Western Ave (~15 min walk from conference).

Excited to head to Seattle this week for #APPAM2025. I’ll be presenting my work on how universal pre-K expansions affect public school system enrollment. If you're interested in spillover effects of early childhood policies, get in touch & hope to see you in Seattle!

I'm on the job market! My JMP studies the role of high school teachers in preparing students for college success I find significant positive effects of high school teachers on 🔹College admissions test scores 🔹College enrollment 🔹College performance 🧵(1/10)

Published in Economics of Education Review! Building on @joshua-goodman.com's post, we find public school enrollment declines are concentrated in higher-income districts, middle grades, and among White and Asian students. I hope these findings support discussions on the shifting education landscape.

Know any aspiring PhD students interested in quant studies in education? Please direct them to our programs in ed policy, econ of ed, or ed data science! I hope to welcome an energetic & ambitious student to join me in our new building 🌴☀️ Applications due November 17 ed.stanford.edu/admissions/a...

This is my last week at the Wall Street Journal. I'll be returning to Chalkbeat to launch a new section focused on the big ideas and debates in American education. More on this soon! You can sign up to keep following my work here: www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

Hi Bluesky! I'm excited to share my job market paper (for the 2025-26 market)! It introduces a new extension of RDD where outcomes are entire distributions: Regression Discontinuity Design with Distributions (R3D). Thread below 👇 (1/)

It's gratifying to see my recent immigration-raid research actually being used. wapo.st/42mWdTn

Breaking: Lisa Cook can remain on the Fed's board for now, a judge ruled, blocking Trump from firing her.

I'm on Cambridge's 87 bus right now, heading to the Royal Sonesta to hear some great Economics of Education talks as part of the #NBER Summer Institute. I'll try to live post as many as possible, so watch this thread! @nber.org #EconSky

And the exact circumstances of her dismissal were chilling -- both figuratively and literally. Please read if you have some time today. (3/3) hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

The @nytimes.com spotlighted a new study from #EdWorkingPapers that examines the profound impact of immigration raids on attendance in California's Central Valley. Read the NYT article below.

Families responded to pronounced full-day kindergarten expansions across the US over three decades with increases in employment among moms and decreases in childcare expenses for families, from @chloergibbs.bsky.social, Jocelyn S. Wikle, and Riley Wilson https://www.nber.org/papers/w33948

Excited to share my joint work with @joshua-goodman.com on K-12 enrollment patterns in Massachusetts. Five years after the pandemic began, we're seeing persistent enrollment losses in public schools, especially in the middle school years-trends that mirror what's happening nationally. Check it out!

Important study by @tomdee.bsky.social shows recent immigration raids led to a 22% spike in school absences in CA’s Central Valley — with particular impacts among youngest kids.

🤔 What kind of Pre-K experience sets students up for long-term success? Our new working paper offers important new evidence to help answer this question! 🔗 edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai25-1194.pdf And 🧵👇

🌟What if early educators were paid like K-12 teachers? New evidence from Washington, DC shows what would happen: more stability in the child care workforce, higher-quality caregiving, and greater mental health and financial well-being for early educators.🌟 #EduSkyECEC www.urban.org/research/pub...

I’m really proud of myself & the work I’ve been doing. I’m also thankful for the Foundation’s investment in my work, ideas, & me as a scholar! Amidst a political climate of disinvestment from justice-oriented work, shout out to WTG for “standing 10 toes down”! 1/3 www.gse.upenn.edu/news/ericka-...

Need some good education news? Over the last decade, the number of students taking an AP Computer Science exam more than tripled and that was no accident. In a new @pnas.org study, Daniela Ganelin & I find that roughly two-thirds of this growth can be attributed to the new AP CS Principles course.