Why does so much high-quality education policy research come from North Carolina?  Matt Barnum asks in Chalkbeat. He answers:

because North Carolina has kept track of things like student test scores, teacher demographics, and school accountability data since the ‘90s, and also made that information more accessible to researchers than anywhere else.

He continues:

North Carolina’s popularity is tied to the fact that it is one of the few states where researchers can get student data (that has been anonymized) from a third party, in this case a research center established in 2000 that operates out of Duke University. In most states, the state education department or other state agency controls that information. Many states and districts lack the resources, streamlined systems, or staff capacity that North Carolina’s center has to meet researchers’ requests.

Studies based on data from North Carolina have appeared in many issues of Education Next:

Constance A. Lindsay and Cassandra M. D. Hart wrote “Teacher Race and School Discipline” in the Winter 2017 issue of EdNext.

David J. Deming wrote “Does School Choice Reduce Crime?” in the Spring 2012 issue.

Finley Edwards wrote “Do Schools Begin Too Early?” in the Summer 2012 issue.

— Education Next