Engaging Families

Families want to be involved in their children’s education and see them succeed. By leveraging insights from behavioral science and taking an asset-based view of families, my research provides educators with tools to partner with families to increase student success. My work also shows that how schools communicate with families can determine which students benefit from the resources schools offer.

Relevant Work

2025. “The inequity of opt-in educational resources and an intervention to increase equitable access” (with Biraj Bisht & Susanna Loeb), Educational Researcher.

2022. “Parent engagement interventions are not costless: Opportunity cost and crowd out of parental investment” (with Raj Chande, Simon Burgess & Todd Rogers), Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

2022. “START communicating effectively: Best practices for educational communications” (with Jessica Lasky-Fink), Behavioral Science in the Wild, University of Toronto Press.

2021. “Using behavioral insights to improve school administrative communications: The case of truancy notifications” (with Jessica Lasky-Fink, Hedy Chang & Todd Rogers), Educational Researcher.

2021. “The demotivating effect (and unintended message) of awards” (with Jana Gallus, Monica G. Lee & Todd Rogers), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

2018. “Reducing student absenteeism in the early grades by targeting parental beliefs” (with Monica G. Lee, Eric Dearing & Todd Rogers), American Educational Research Journal.

Public Writing & Press

The 74. “Write Less to Say More: How Schools Can Communicate More Effectively With Families” (2020).

Education Next. “How to Tackle Student Absenteeism” (2019).

CPRE Knowledge Hub Podcast. “When Attendance Awards Backfire.”