Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Increasingly education decisionmakers are adopting digital learning policies and allocating scarce funding to purchase devices, digital content, instructional software, and other strategies to integrate technology into the classroom. To this day however, evidence is not available to guide these decisions. We examine the effect of the North Carolina Digital Learning Initiative (NCDLI), a state level policy to build infrastructure and promote implementation of digital learning practices on student outcomes. Using administrative data form the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction that contain longitudinal information on student educational outcomes, demographic characteristics as well as teacher-, school-, and district-level information, we exploit the timing of the state-level allocation of funds for digital learning initiatives to estimate the effect of digital learning on student engagement using an event-study design. In addition, we exploit the timing of the implementation of the program to identify students that receive different levels of digital learning exposure and explore how those can relate to student outcomes such as attendance, disciplinary referrals, course-taking patterns and GPA using a differences-in-differences estimation. We begin by examining the first stage effects of the policy on the funding for education and resource allocation within the state. Then, we explore how those changes shifted student engagement. Preliminary findings indicate wide variation in level of implementation and effectiveness of the NCDLI and point to issues related to equity and shifts in responsibility for teachers and families.