Student participation in summer programming can be an effective way to address students' academic and developmental needs. When well implemented and well attended, summer enrichment programs, academic programs, and employment programs have demonstrated positive outcomes for youth in areas related to program content, including academic achievement…

As federal funding for summer learning as a pandemic recovery strategy phases out, state governments face decisions about their future role in supporting students' access to quality summer learning opportunities. This brief is based on the full report, "How States Are Expanding Quality Summer Learning Opportunities," and summarizes…

We present findings from an exploratory quantitative content analysis case study of 156 doctoral dissertations from Georgia State University that investigates doctoral student researchers' methodology practices (used quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods) and data practices (used primary data, secondary data, or both). We discuss the…

The Standards Assessment Inventory (SAI) has provided relevant, educator-level data helping systems of all kinds -- states, districts, schools, provinces, and organizations -- gather and track data about the professional learning their educators experience. An online, confidential, valid, and reliable instrument administered to school-based…

In recent years, career and technical education (CTE) programs that include quality work-based learning (WBL) opportunities for students have gained significant traction among educators, policymakers, and stakeholders as an effective way to prepare students for the labor market. However, a lack of data on WBL--which many CTE students participate…

State legislators have the opportunity to create and support legislation that positions data as a tool to help decisionmakers at all levels take action to support student success. This checklist can serve as a guide to crafting legislation that addresses education data. It applies specifically to education data legislation which includes bills…

Written especially for state policy makers, administrators and advocates, this brief is our fifth annual examination of state attendance data, policy, and practices. It is based on a review of websites for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., as well as a survey completed by 49 states and Washington, D.C. State leaders, especially in state…

In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began exploratory data collection for the School Pension Survey (SPS). The SPS is a new data collection of elementary/secondary school teacher pension data collected at the school district level. The SPS was developed primarily in response to public demand for data on teacher and other…

Data from assessment of library building use can aid in making important decisions, such as where a renovation would be most impactful, in addition to the actual impact of those types of renovations. This article examines space usage data collected at Valdosta State University's Odum Library from 2017 to 2021. Renovations in two key areas occurred…

When Nia Thornton became an assistant principal at Central Gwinnett High School in Georgia, one of her responsibilities was to lead professional learning for the school staff. She and the school leadership team were excited engage the staff in meaningful, day-to-day learning. They knew that their work needed to be rooted in current research and…

This contribution takes a critical perspective on digital school performance platforms (SPP), which today play a key role in US state education monitoring and accountability. Using examples from two different US state education agencies, I provide an analytical disentanglement of some key dimensions of such platforms' enactment and materiality. I…

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association's (SHEEO) "Communities of Practice" project builds upon SHEEO's ongoing efforts to measure the capacity and effective use of state postsecondary data systems and provides states with opportunities to develop solutions to common issues with those systems. The sixth Community of…

Retaining new teachers has long been an issue that has plagued K-12 education (Garcia & Weiss, 2019; Ingersoll, 2001; Kelchtermans, 2017). While there is significant literature on general K-12 teacher retention (Borman & Dowling, 2008; Chapman & Hutcheson, 1982; Hanushek et al., 2004; Whipp & Geronime, 2015), there has been little…

Using data from 11 institutions, the authors investigate enrollments in intermediate microeconomics to determine characteristics of successful and unsuccessful students and follow the retake behavior of unsuccessful students. Successful students are significantly different from unsuccessful ones, and unsuccessful students differ by type…

The Cobb Teaching & Learning System (CTLS) is a digital learning initiative developed for and by the Cobb County School District (CCSD) in Georgia. CTLS became a crucial initiative used by the district to maintain student academic progress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, this case study seeks to analyze CTLS's…