This narrative inquiry highlights the first year of a 5-year Jacob K. Javits grant. In it, the authors detail their experiences writing and receiving the grant and beginning the equity-focused work of helping develop and expand gifted education in Michigan. Michigan currently has no gifted education legislation or funding, so this Javits team…

This study investigates how individual states raise revenue to pay for elementary-secondary education spending after a school finance reform (SFR). We consider 24 states that implemented SFRs between 1989 and 2005. Using a synthetic control approach, we identify six case-study states (Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, and…

The Region 8 Comprehensive Center collaborated with the Indiana Department of Education to evaluate the obstacles many districts face in the teacher hiring process. The brief further discusses the importance of hiring timelines, benefits and barriers of early hiring, and recommendations and strategies for revising hiring timelines.

School transportation may increase student outcomes by providing a reliable and safe means of getting to and from school. Little evidence of the effects of such policies exists. In this paper, I provide some of the first causal evidence of transportation impacts on student attendance and achievement using a rich panel of student-level enrollment…

School choice policy shifts the responsibility of accessing high-quality schools from the state to parents, yet there is little research on how parents subjectively experience the burdens of choosing schools. In this case study, we conducted interviews and focus groups with 36 parents attending traditional public, charter, and private schools…

We survey undergraduate students at a large public university to understand the pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors driving their college major and career decisions with a focus on K-12 teaching. While the average student reports there is a 6% chance they will pursue teaching, almost 27% report a nonzero chance of working as a teacher in the…

We use administrative panel data from seven states covering nearly 3 million students to document and explore variation in "academic mobility," a term we use to describe the extent to which students' ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their public schooling careers. On average, we show that student ranks are…

Parental perception of the importance of science education and parental perceptions and use of active learning and inquiry-based practices in the context of homeschool science education represent a clear gap in the existing literature. This quantitative survey research study was designed to discover, analyze, and quantify parents' perceptions of…

From 2005 to 2015, the number of Black teachers in Michigan dropped by 48%, substantially exceeding declines in the corresponding K-12 Black student population. These teacher losses are an acute phenomenon within a broader national context of deurbanization of K-12 student populations away from those districts with the largest and most established…

Building stronger relationships between families and schools is increasingly identified as a way to address many vexing issues--teacher shortages, chronic absenteeism, lingering academic and social-emotional effects of COVID-19, and perceived divisions between parents and educators. Because policies and practices around family engagement vary…

Over the past decade, Children's Savings Account (CSA) programs have proliferated across the United States. CSA programs pair long-term savings and investment accounts with other supports to help families pay for post-secondary education. The goal of most CSA programs is to increase participants'--especially those from low-income…

This study examines the impact of statewide Restorative Justice (RJ) policy reforms in Michigan and Texas on student disciplinary outcomes and behavior, in light of increasing concerns over the negative effects of zero-tolerance policies. As schools move away from exclusionary discipline practices, this research focuses on three primary questions:…

Amid the ongoing pandemic, school librarians across the country have been facing a different kind of battle, one that has been going on for years in some cases: the fight for every student to benefit from the instruction and carefully curated resources a certified school librarian can provide. Several states are working to introduce or retain…

The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted massive disruptions on all aspects of daily life, not least of which was the education of K-12 students. It is accepted wisdom among many educational researchers that students need face-to-face instruction from certified teachers in order to flourish. But because students in many districts were forced to stay home…

Awareness of executive functioning and its relevance to both occupational participation and special education is expanding. This study describes how school-based occupational therapists address executive functioning in practice and determined if this differs from traditional areas. Fourteen occupational therapists from four districts in Michigan…