Cassandra Guarino

Professor Emerita of Education and Public Policy, School of Education,

University of California, Riverside

Cassandra Guarino is professor emerita of education and public policy in the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. She previously worked as an economist at the RAND Corporation and on the faculties of Michigan State University and Indiana University. Her research focuses on teacher quality, teacher labor markets, school choice, and issues in which health and education are linked. Her work includes several studies related to value-added measures of teacher performance, teacher effectiveness in the early grades, school choice, teacher mobility, and special needs identification. She has led numerous grants, including the Institute of Education Sciences and various state agencies and foundations. Guarino received her PhD in the economics of education with an emphasis on labor economics from Stanford University.

updated 2025

Contributing topics

Educational governance & policy

Supporting students’ social-emotional, mental & physical health

Understanding, measuring & improving student outcomes

Contributing initiatives

COVID-19 Recovery

Commentary by Cassandra Guarino

December 17, 2013 : Is There Empirical Evidence Consistent with the Claim that Charter Schools 'Push Out' Low-Performing Students?

Publications by Cassandra Guarino

October 2020

The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes

Lessons for COVID-19

This brief discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student absenteeism and academic and social-emotional outcomes using panel data from California's CORE Districts. Absenteeism has a negative effect on student outcomes, with math being more…