This is the full report. In 2019-2020, the program's third federally funded year, GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) Austin served a cohort of 8th grade students (n = 2,546) across 11 middle schools. Nearly all GEAR UP students received support services relevant to college preparation. Evaluation findings…

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), the nation's first federal nutrition education program for low-income families and youths, remains at the forefront of providing nutrition education to improve the lives of historically underserved populations. EFNEP contributes to food and nutrition security as program families and youths…

At first glance, parents seem aware of the importance of summer reading, as 94% agree reading over the summer can help their child during the school year. And yet, nearly half of parents with school-age children are unaware of the "summer slide" (47%), the loss of academic skills that occurs when school is not in session and which is…

Empirical Education Inc. is the independent evaluator of SRI International's 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) Development grant called Redesigning Secondary Courses to Improve Academic Outcomes for Adolescents with Disabilities and Other Underperforming Adolescents. The goal of the grant is to develop "Enhanced Units" that combine…

Families are now an undeniable part of prospective students' college search process. As American higher education stands at the precipice of profound demographic shifts, colleges and universities must reexamine how they engage not just prospective students, but their families as well. In collaboration with Ardeo and CampusESP, RNL collected and…

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) is on the rise, driven in part by increasing awareness of OER. But while faculty and institutions have shown increasing awareness and acceptance of OER, many remain unfamiliar with what they are, or how to utilize them. When faculty are aware of OER initiatives at their institution, there is an…

The IEA's International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) investigates the ways in which young people around the world are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens. This report presents the international results from the third cycle of the study (ICCS 2022). Based on data from 24 countries or benchmarking participants from Europe,…

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a study of 15-year-old students' performance in reading, mathematics, and science literacy conducted every 3 years. The PISA 2018 results provide a global view of U.S. students' performance compared to their peers in nearly 80 countries and education systems. By design, PISA aims to…

The present report is the outcome of a study on the status of OER in the Commonwealth conducted in late 2021. Considering the importance of OER in the context of the challenges posed by COVID-19, the findings shall be useful for Member States and educational institutions to mainstream OER. The overall objective is to help countries across the…

This study is one in a series on K-12 curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic sparked significant changes in how classes were taught and curriculum materials were sourced, and this survey's focus shifted to studying that impact. The pandemic-induced move to remote instruction was only possible…

In November 2019, the Legislative Budget Board published a management and performance review of the Houston Independent School District. Among its recommendations was one that concerned professional development for teachers of English learners (ELs). Specifically, the report recommended: "[S]urveying teachers of ELs to determine where they…

This report examines the impact of content-intensive Professional Development (PD) on teachers' math content knowledge, their instructional practice, and their students' achievement. The study's PD had three components, totaling 93 hours. The core of the PD was "Intel Math," an intensive 80-hour workshop delivered in summer 2013 that…

STEM Pathways aims to increase youths' long-term interest, learning and achievement in STEM through a deliberate and interconnected system of STEM learning opportunities. STEM Pathways is a partnership between five informal STEM organizations--The Bakken, Bell Museum of Natural History, Minnesota Zoo, STARBASE Minnesota, and The Works--and the…

This article investigates the causal relationship between women's schooling and fertility by exploiting variation generated by the removal of school fees in Ethiopia. The increase in schooling caused by the reform is identified using both geographic variation in the intensity of its impact and temporal variation generated by the timing of the…

By the time people earn physics PhDs, they have learned a great deal about physics and how research is conducted. However, physics PhDs also develop skills and knowledge in a number of related areas, such as advanced mathematics, programming, modeling, and technical writing. Physics PhDs draw upon an arsenal of skills and knowledge in their…