This report summarizes findings from the School Meals Operations Study (SMO), part of an ongoing series to assess school meal operations on a school year (SY) basis. This volume of the study covers July 2021 through the end of September 2022 and includes SY 2021-2022. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, the Families First Coronavirus…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on who parenting students are and their experiences…

This appendix volume supplements "Evaluating the Federal Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority: Early Implementation and Progress of State Efforts to Develop New Statewide Academic Assessments. Evaluation Report. NCEE 2023-004" analyzing the early progress of the first five assessment systems participating in the Innovative…

As the youth mentoring field has expanded and diversified in America over the last 30-plus years, many adults who care about getting these valuable relationships to more young people have asked questions about the scope and scale of mentoring in American society. In 2014, MENTOR first started to examine these societal level trends in a seminal…

Internships have grown to become a crucial part of the graduate job market. Offering graduates an invaluable opportunity to gain hands-on experience, develop key skills, and build their networks, they can be formative experiences for those trying to kickstart their career. But our previous research has highlighted a persistent and pervasive…

Across the country, colleges using Complete College America (CCA) strategies are improving graduation rates. But despite these overall gains, data continues to show persistent institutional performance gaps for BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, People of Color) students and students ages 25 and older. Students in both of these groups…

The report "Time for a Game-Changing Summer, With Opportunity and Growth for All of America's Youth," finds that as participation in summer programs prior to the pandemic was on an upwards trajectory, there remained a significant number of children missing out. For every child in a summer learning program in 2019, another would have been…

The Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) was awarded an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Early Phase grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2017 to develop, implement, and test a promising program to improve student achievement and educational progress for high-need students: Reenergizing Leadership to Achieve…

The Afterschool Alliance's fourth edition of "America after 3PM" provides a detailed accounting of the circumstances and conditions of U.S. children during the hours of 3 to 6 p.m. and compares afterschool program participation and unmet demand statistics for 2020 with results from 2004, 2009, and 2014. It identifies trends in…

The "Exploring Implementation of Attendance Supports to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism in the Providence Public School District" study examined attendance supports aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism that Rhode Island's Providence Public School District (PPSD) schools implemented in the 2018/19 school year. The study investigated what…

The College Board sought to reduce barriers in the college application process by minimizing information aggregation costs, encouraging a broad application portfolio, and providing an impetus to start the search process. Some students were offered additional encouragements, such as text message reminders or college application fee waivers. In a…

In the summer of 2017, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership and its partners at AT&T set out on an ambitious data collection and research project intended to capture the perceptions, beliefs, and activities of American adults about the topic of youth mentoring. One core objective of this first-of-its-kind project is the focus of this…

Recognizing the importance of immigrants to Greater Boston and the value of English classes and other supports to building an inclusive and welcoming community, the Boston Foundation and the Latino Legacy Fund commissioned a study that explores the "return on investment" (ROI) for teaching English to adults who are speakers of other…

This Deans Summary highlights the key themes and insights of the GMAC Prospective Students Survey -- 2023 Summary Report. It continues to explore trends in the candidate pipeline, program preferences, and career goals as well as new questions added to this year's survey about first-generation candidates, motivations for pursuing GME, and social…

Getting more young people engaged in STEM is essential in part because jobs in STEM continue to grow at rates double those of non-STEM professions. Providing greater opportunities for STEM learning isn't just about preparing the future workforce. As the world continues to rely more and more on technology, everyone will require a greater level of…