Description
- Abstract:
- We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning may mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer temperature has little impact, suggesting heat directly disrupts learning time. New nationwide, school-level measures of air-conditioning penetration suggest patterns consistent with such infrastructure largely offsetting heat’s effects. Without air-conditioning, a 1°F hotter school year reduces that year’s learning by one percent. Hot school days disproportionately impact minority students, accounting for roughly five percent of the racial achievement gap.
Access Conditions
- Use and Reproduction
- In Copyright
Citation
Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, Jisung Park, et al.,
"Heat and Learning"
(2019).
EdWorkingPapers.com Archive.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:956670/
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EdWorkingPapers.com Archive
The Annenberg Institute at Brown University has developed this national working paper series to provide public access to high-quality papers from multiple disciplines on a wide variety of topics related to education. EdWorkingPapers focuses particularly on research with strong implications …...