The Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) manages the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which students and parents submit to determine a student's eligibility for receiving financial aid. The FAFSA Processing System (FPS)--the system that underpins federal student aid--processes these applications. In…

For decades, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms were processed electronically by the legacy Central Processing System. In 2021 the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) initiated a system development effort and in December 2023 deployed a new system to process forms for the 2024-2025 school year. However, student aid…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the entry ramp to federal grants and loans that many students depend on to afford college. Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 in part to make it easier to apply for federal aid. However, Education's rollout of the new FAFSA has suffered from numerous challenges and delays.…

Research questions regarding how, for whom, and where a treatment achieves its effect on an outcome have become increasingly valued in substantive research. Such questions can be answered by causal moderated mediation analysis, which assesses the heterogeneity of the mediation mechanism underlying the treatment effect across individual and…

Drawing upon the growing datafication of contemporary schooling, our purpose in this article is to use topological thinking as an analytical device to better understand the professionals and practices within emergent data infrastructures. We address this by attending to an influential national (and subnational) data infrastructure of school…

"Pre-K Mathematics" is a supplemental mathematics program focusing on a range of mathematical concepts to help develop children's informal mathematical knowledge. The "Pre-K Mathematics" program includes teacher-led, small-group mathematics activities that are engaging and hands-on, as well as caregiver-child activities that…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IXL Math online software in raising student achievement on the New York State Math exam, with special focus on effects by student gender, ethnicity and disability status. The study includes an analysis of the relationship between scale scores and time spent using the IXL system, number…

Despite the use of earned value management (EVM) techniques to track development progress, federal information (IT) software programs continue to fail by not meeting identified business requirements. The purpose of this logistic regression study was to examine, using IT software data from federal agencies from 2011 to 2014, whether a relationship…

Background: The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) directed the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to revise school meal standards to increase healthy food offerings. A critical stakeholder in the implementation of standards is Food Service Directors (FSDs). We sought to examine FSDs' perspectives on revised school meal standards to…

Success Maker is an educational software that differentiates and personalizes K-8 reading and math. Limited research has been conducted on the impact of Success Maker on Grade 4 math state tests. At the research site, located in southeastern United States, 33.7% of fourth grade students did not pass the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards…

Formerly Educators Resource Directory, Educators Resource Guide is designed to provide educators, administrators, and other education professionals with immediate access to a unique combination of educational resources, along with important educational statistics and rankings. Educators Resource Guide includes associations, publications, trade…

Formerly "Educators Resource Directory," "Educators Resource Guide" is designed to provide educators, administrators, and other education professionals with immediate access to a unique combination of educational resources, along with important educational statistics and rankings. "Educators Resource Guide" includes…

In a time of resource challenges, many educators see the cost of expanding learning time as a barrier. However, with at least 1,000 schools across the United States currently expanding learning time, data show that schools can implement the approach cost effectively. Expanded learning time schools manage three levers that both build quality…

Formerly "Educators Resource Directory," Educators "Resource Guide" is designed to provide educators, administrators, and other education professionals with immediate access to a unique combination of educational resources, along with important educational statistics and rankings. "Educators Resource Guide" includes…

The launch of HealthCare.gov, the website of the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), was a major public relations disaster for the Obama administration. This case examines some of the factors that contributed to the failure of the launch and then details how Optum, an information technology service provider, considered the opportunity provided by…