Nearly half of students who enter college do not graduate. The majority of efforts to increase college completion have focused on supporting students before or soon after they enter college, yet many students drop out after making significant progress towards their degree. In this paper, we report results from a multi-year, large-scale…

Approximately 1.3 million public school students in the United States were identified as experiencing some form of homelessness in 2019-20. Due to their unstable living situations, students experiencing homelessness often have additional educational, social, emotional, and material needs compared to their stably housed peers. Housing instability…

We use comprehensive administrative data from three states to document the relationships between geographic mobility and student outcomes during K-12 schooling. We focus specifically on "nonstructural" mobility events--which we define as school or district changes that do not occur naturally as the result of planned transitions between…

We use administrative data from three states to document the relationships between geographic mobility and student outcomes during K-12 schooling. We focus specifically on nonstructural mobility events--which we define as school changes that do not occur as the result of normal transitions between schools--and on longitudinal measures that capture…

Alternative schools are vital spaces for students who are not successful in traditional schools. The knowledge of social and emotional learning (SEL) and the impact it has on students who attend alternative schools specifically is limited. The problem addressed by this study was the lack of success that explicit SEL programs have in meeting the…

Social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) is a holistic approach to supporting students' development and learning that is integral to ensuring positive outcomes in school and beyond. Schools must ensure students experience healthy development and rigorous learning. Unfortunately, students of color, students from low-income backgrounds,…

The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for youth ages 16 to 18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. This report covers the program years 2018-2019 and is the fourth in a series of annual reports that RAND Corporation researchers have issued over the course of a research project…

This study's purpose is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international students who were studying at U.S. community colleges at the onset of this public health crisis. While previous work has explored the impact of the pandemic on international students generally, we argue that community college international students deserve…

In compliance with The Every Student Succeeds Act, many states report "chronic absenteeism" as an indicator of student success. While chronic absenteeism is prevalent across the country, marginalized youth experience differential rates compared to their White peers. The disproportionate overrepresentation of marginalized youth is partly…

This paper reports the results of a randomized controlled trial evaluating "We Have Skills," a brief curriculum designed to teach early elementary students academic and social skills as well as improve teacher efficacy in classroom management. Intervention efficacy was tested with 127 teachers, randomly assigned to condition, and 2,817…

This brief summarizes a study of five school districts that have been recognized for their efforts to provide high-quality services to students experiencing homelessness. The districts worked hard to identify students experiencing homelessness and supplemented modest federal funds with private funding, district funding, community-based resources,…

As schools shift to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to support disenfranchised populations and keep issues of equity at the centre of our response. In this study, the authors focus on supporting one of the few urban-based Indigenous language schools in the United States because language revitalisation is critical…

As in other states, disruptions in schooling amid the pandemic have impacted public school enrollment in Washington State. This brief examines shifts in public school enrollment in Washington since the pandemic began last spring, using data reported by OSPI in October 2020, and statewide headcount data from the Office of Superintendent of Public…

This case study examined the initial implementation of an Early Warning Intervention System (EWIS) across three comprehensive high schools in a large suburban school district in Washington State using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The purpose of the study was two-fold: to determine the extent to which the initial application of…

This study examines the efforts of higher education systems in six states to implement large-scale changes to improve student outcomes in mathematics in community colleges and four-year colleges and universities as part of the Mathematics Pathways to Completion (MPC) project. The three-year project was launched in 2015 to help Arkansas,…