@article{morrill_westall_2023, title={Heterogeneity in the educational impacts of natural disasters: Evidence from Hurricane Florence}, volume={94}, ISSN={["1873-7382"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102373}, abstractNote={In September 2018, Hurricane Florence caused widespread and extended school closures throughout North Carolina. Leveraging variation within schools over time, we explore heterogeneity in the impact of hurricane-related schooling disruption on students’ end-of-grade test scores. Impacts were not concentrated on students performing at the lowest levels in the prior year nor on those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Rather, the estimates suggest that most students experienced small declines in test performance irrespective of baseline human capital or demographic group.}, journal={ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW}, author={Morrill, Melinda and Westall, John}, year={2023}, month={Jun} }
 @article{lenard_morrill_westall_2020, title={High school start times and student achievement: Looking beyond test scores}, volume={76}, ISSN={["1873-7382"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.101975}, abstractNote={The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that U.S. secondary schools begin after 8:30 a.m. to better align with the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Yet due to economic and logistic considerations, the vast majority of high schools begin the school day considerably earlier. We leverage a quasi-natural experiment in which five comprehensive high schools in one of the nation’s largest school systems moved start times forty minutes earlier to better coordinate with earlier-start high schools. Here, disruption effects should exacerbate any harmful consequences. We report on the effect of earlier start times on a broad range of outcomes, including mandatory ACT test scores, absenteeism, on-time progress in high school, and college-going. While we fail to find evidence of harmful effects on test scores, we do see a rise in absenteeism and tardiness rates, as well as higher rates of dropping out of high school. These results suggest that the harmful effects of early start times may not be well captured by considering test scores alone.}, journal={ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW}, author={Lenard, Matthew and Morrill, Melinda Sandler and Westall, John}, year={2020}, month={Jun} }