Schools are working urgently to help students catch back up to grade level in the wake of the pandemic. But that can only happen if students get consistent opportunities to do grade-level work. Our previous research has shown that when students fall behind, providing access to grade level work with appropriate support (learning acceleration) is…

In this paper, we investigate how student enrollment in public schools is different after the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the pandemic--between the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years--about 12 percent of public elementary schools and 9 percent of middle schools experienced more than a 20 percent decline. This is a significant change from before the…

Nationwide, a growing percentage of kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) teachers report regularly using standards-aligned English language arts and math curriculum materials. Despite this uptick in the regular usage of standards-aligned materials across the United States, not all teachers use these materials for the majority of their…

Background: Students of color are disproportionately placed in special education throughout the United States. Prior research suggests that special education is used too often in high-poverty schools partly due to limited resources available to support struggling students (Skiba et al., 2006). More recent studies, however, suggest that…

The departure of an effective school leader can influence staff turnover and student achievement for several years. With school systems facing an unprecedented public health crisis due to COVID-19, principal retention is a key area of concern for many local and state education agencies. The Regional Educational Laboratory West undertook this study…

The "Principal Retention Patterns in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah" study examined principal retention rates in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. The study sought to understand principal retention patterns in these states, so that their new statewide leadership support initiatives could identify areas where support could be most effective.…

The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in spring 2020 forced nearly all U.S. schools to transition rapidly to remote learning. However, a minority of U.S. public schools were prepared for a crisis on the level of COVID-19. Using responses to the American Educator Panels, RAND researchers investigate how schools' pre-pandemic planning…

We investigated the dimensionality and relations between L1 (a speaker's first language) and L2 (a speaker's second language) writing skills in narrative and informational genres and higher order cognitive skills--inference, perspective taking, and comprehension monitoring--for Spanish-English dual language learners in primary grades. Dimensions…

As the nation has become increasingly politically divided in the wake of the 2016 Presidential elections, educators have turned their attention to civics education that might have the ability to encourage students to engage productively in public life. In addition, the February 2018 shootings at Parkland High School sparked a nationwide movement…

In this paper, we use NWEA MAP test data to examine variation in students' achievement and growth during the pandemic across multiple dimensions. Consistent with prior evidence, we find that students' test scores in fall 2021, on average, were substantially below historic averages. Moreover, the average scores of students of color, students…

What can over a million teachers tell funders about the needs of schools? No one has greater insight into the needs of students and schools than teachers. Increasingly, teachers are using their voice in identifying what American classrooms lack via crowdfunding websites like DonorsChoose. These requests uncover interesting patterns among…

Relationships among individual- and school-level factors and students' perpetration of violence, victimization, and safety were studied in two southeastern school districts (N = 26,160, Grades 6-12). Both student demographics (sex, ethnicity, and grade) and school level (high vs. middle school) were associated with perpetration, victimization, and…

We investigated the dimensionality and relations between L1 (a speaker's first language) and L2 (a speaker's second language) writing skills in narrative and informational genres and higher order cognitive skills--inference, perspective taking, and comprehension monitoring--for Spanish-English dual language learners in primary grades. Dimensions…

This report looks at student growth in Arkansas school districts disaggregated by district poverty and by the district's value-added performance relative to other districts. We estimated district value-added performance statistics by subject and grade level (8 and 11-12) for longitudinal student cohorts, using statistical models that adjusted for…

"Time to Act," a 2009 report of the Carnegie Corporation's Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, concludes that U.S. students are ill-prepared for the literacy challenges of 21st century higher education, employment, and citizenship. Word Generation (WG) is a research-based vocabulary program for middle school students designed to…