@andrewpenner
Professor of Sociology and administrative data infrastructure enthusiast at UC Irvine. My book (Schooled & Sorted) examines the role of categorization in education and how we can create more egalitarian categories.
I’m really glad to see that our paper is now out at Ed Researcher! We examine turnover among the half of school employees who are not teachers to understand how their turnover compares. Using Oregon data (2007-23) for all public school employees, there are 3 new patterns that we document:
A 🧵
I love how this reframes what our goals are💜
A thing we have discussed in my classrooms recently is how LLMs don’t help us achieve these goals, which are what we want to focus on together. I haven’t been using the language of absolute goods to make this point, but am going to start doing so!
I have found myself thinking about this line a lot recently.
Students from high income families get more 504 supports, while students from low income families are more likely to be in special education.
Working paper is available at:
In a new working paper, my collaborators and I show that which students are identified as gifted and talented varies substantially by family income, and that these differences remain even after accounting for students’ test scores.
Black text on a yellow background - This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing. Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”
Yet one more way that we are failing children.
New episode of @haveyouheard.bsky.social, featuring research by @t-h-a-d.bsky.social, @emilykpenner.bsky.social, and Andrew Penner.
We subsequently looked at a few of the images I have published, but none were deemed as cool as the Banff data🙃
Kiddo was incredulous and excited when I noted that making pictures to help people understand the world better was my job, and said I could publish this. Kiddo then suggested a division of labor where they would bring me other tidbits like this for me to publish😍
Bar chart of Banff animal over and underpass crossing data.
Table from book that inspired figure (Banff animal over and underpass crossing data).
Baby’s first data visualization—was reading a book about the Banff wildlife crossings and wanted to understand the preferences of different animals.
Fascinating work by Deven Carlson, @t-h-a-d.bsky.social, James Carter, @rachelmarisa.bsky.social, Vitali Radsky, and Andrew McEachin on both the potential of school choice for the purpose of desegregation and the disappointing reality that most school choice systems tend to exacerbate segregation
The Power of Attorney flourished when more Americans saw incarcerated people as more than their crimes.
Their career would be unthinkable today: Leaving prison under armed guards to play hundreds of concerts and record in major studios.
For me as a graduate student, @isa-rc28.bsky.social modeled the kind of large-scale, big team, data intensive, methodologically rigorous, theoretically meaningful research that I aspired to do, and so it was especially meaningful to have our work recognized by this award!
It was such an honor to receive this award from @isa-rc28.bsky.social
on behalf of @oliviergodechot.bsky.social and other coauthors.
As @oliviergodechot.bsky.social notes, in some ways this could be seen as an example of "big" science:
coauthors: 29
years it took: 9
countries: 12
pages (w/ appendices): 111
observations: 1,164,687,821
But it can be summarized in one 5-word sentence: Top earners increasingly work together. PERIOD.
So excited to receive this award on behalf of @oliviergodechot.bsky.social and 27 other coauthors!
Every jailhouse lawyer knows Dee Farmer’s name, even if they don’t know who she is.
What most of them don’t know is that the person who paved the road for them was a transgender woman who filed her suit from a federal prison cell, in an era when her gender identity was considered a mental illness.
Short piece about our @nature.com paper on the immigrant-native pay gap in The Conversation! Also broad coverage in (so far) German, Dutch, and Spanish central news outlets today!
IN OTHER NEWS: check out our new COIN paper on immigrant--native pay gaps in advanced economies published in @nature.com this afternoon! Specifically, we study the relative contribution of within-job unequal pay vs between-job segregation to earnings disparities across immigrant generations. 1/9
Very excited for the latest paper from the international administrative data network I am a part of!
Led by @aresherman.bsky.social we show that 75% of pay differences between immigrants and native-born workers arise because of sorting into different jobs, with 25% due to unequal pay within jobs.
Universal school masking reduced weekly COVID-19 deaths by 0.57 per 100k people. 50 percent of districts removed mask requirements by spring 2022 contributing to 9 percent of COVID deaths that year, from Guzman, Imberman, Filosa, Kilbride, and Malkus https://www.nber.org/papers/w33849
AERA: I'm looking forward to sharing a paper co-authored with @alexfreidus.bsky.social and @ericaoturner.bsky.social on how families of disabled children made school choices during the pandemic. Should be a stellar symposium on school choice for marginalized families! 8am Sunday in Meeting Room 712.
I love this assignment so much and can’t wait to use it (with attribution) the next time I teach Sociology of Education!
This made my day, and I love these answers so much!
I tell my students that one of the reasons that I remain an optimist is because of how thoughtful and creative they are.
Looking forward to seeing what else your students come up with 💜
Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop.
Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop.
So excited to present some great undergrad honors theses from UCI LIFTED students at #psa2025
Thanks to everyone who came for the great questions, and to the session organizers who helped make this happen!
A very old Soviet joke, from an especially dark time:
Foxes are fleeing the USSR in droves.
Q: Why are you running away?
Fox: The Soviets passed a new law that they’re going to arrest all camels.
Q: But you’re foxes!
Fox: Yeah, why don’t *you* try proving to the NKVD that you’re not a camel.
