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ERC Advisory Board declines abortion-access study request, asks researchers to clarify education link
Summary
The Education Research Center advisory board declined a request to use student-level ERC data to study the education and labor-market impacts of Texas abortion restrictions, asking researchers to better connect the project to explicit education policy levers and FERPA exemptions.
The Education Research Center (ERC) advisory board declined Proposal 101, a request to use ERC student records to study how Texas abortion restrictions affected young women’s schooling and labor-market outcomes. The board voted to decline the request as submitted but invited the research team to resubmit after clarifying how the project directly serves ERC's educational mandate and complies with FERPA exemptions.
"By tracing out the full life course impacts of abortion restrictions ... we will enable policymakers to predict and potentially prevent some of the same effects," researcher Jim Flynn, an assistant professor of economics at Miami University, told the board during the Feb. 20 meeting. Flynn described plans to link ERC education records with employment and wage data and to exploit county- and school-level clinic closures related to Texas HB 2 (2013) as identification.
During more than an hour of questioning, board members pressed the researchers to explain which specific educational policy levers the study would illuminate. Members said the proposal did not clearly state what school- or district-level actions (for example, counseling investments, test-preparation services, or targeted supports for pregnant students) could follow from the findings. Several board members asked for a concise narrative describing hypothetical, actionable policy responses tied to concrete intermediate education outcomes (graduation, test scores, course-taking, college application support).
Board members also requested clearer justification for FERPA exemptions cited in the application. "I guess I'm just I'm really having a hard time understanding how this project meets the mandate of the ERC because it seems like this project is really focused on abortion policy, and not specifically education policy," one board member said.
After debate about whether the ERC's objectives and FERPA criteria were satisfied, the board voted to decline the request "as submitted, with the option to resubmit". The motion to decline was moved by Hughey and seconded by Jacqueline; one board member recorded an abstention. The board asked the researchers to return with a revised proposal that: (1) specifies the education-specific data elements requested and why each is necessary, (2) adds a short statement of the likely policy uses in Texas (including hypothetical scenarios tied to findings), and (3) clarifies which FERPA exemption (for example, "improve instruction" or an audit/evaluation exemption) the study will use and why.
The researchers were thanked for the discussion and invited to resubmit at a future meeting.
