This report provides a first look at how Illinois school districts' uses of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds were related to their test score outcomes in the years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data on districts' ESSER expenditures as of November 2023, the authors analyze test score trends across…

The intent of this annual report is to shine light on the Texas Education Agency's strategic plan to ensure every student in Texas is prepared for success in college, a career or the military, and that by 2030 at least 60% of Texans will have a degree, certificate, or other postsecondary credential of value as part of Building a Talent Strong…

The intent of this annual report is to shine light on the Texas Education Agency's commitment to ensuring that every one of the more than five million public school students in Texas is prepared for success in college, a career or the military. The achievements of Texas students are a testament to the hard work of educators across the state. Their…

During the past year, Texas students, families, and educators have shown tremendous grit and determination as they continue to emerge from the effects of the pandemic. While much work remains in mathematics, results from the last school year show that Texas students have largely reached pre-pandemic levels of proficiency in literacy, and Texas…

Few interventions reduce inequality in reading achievement, let alone higher order thinking skills, among adolescents. We study "policy debate"--an extracurricular activity focused on improving middle and high schoolers' critical thinking, argumentation, and policy analysis skills--in Boston schools serving large concentrations of…

This Statistics in Brief (SiB) uses data from the 2011 and 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and explores how achievement gaps between high- and low-performing 4th- and 8th-grade students in the U.S. and other education systems have changed over time. Achievement gaps are defined as the differences in scores…

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, "The Widening Achievement Divide during COVID-19." The authors investigated two main research questions in this brief: (1) To what degree have students' reading and math…

The gainful employment rule enforces the Higher Education Act's requirement that all career education programs receiving federal student aid "prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation." The rule uses debt-to-earnings ratios to assess whether career education programs at public, nonprofit, and for-profit colleges…

School vouchers are state-funded programs--often called scholarship programs--that allow students to use public monies to attend a private school. The state provides a set amount of money, typically based on the state's per-pupil amount, for private school tuition. There are currently 27 voucher programs in 16 states and the District of Columbia.…

The School Improvement Division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) identifies, monitors, and supports low-performing schools. To identify low-performing schools, TEA assigns annual academic accountability ratings to its districts and schools, but these ratings are provided only once per year and are vulnerable to disruptions in the assessment…

This publication marks the fourth edition of the Context and Performance (CAP) Report Card for Michigan elementary and middle schools, published every two years since 2013. The goal is to compare Michigan schools' relative performance by factoring in the role student poverty plays in affecting academic achievement. The CAP Report Card uses…

These are the appendixes for the report, "Investigating the Relationship between Adherence to Connecticut's Teacher Education and Mentoring Program and Teacher Retention." This study was conducted to explore the relationship between adherence to TEAM Program requirements and the outcome of interest-teacher retention. Teacher induction,…

This paper studies whether pupil performance gains achieved by autonomous schools--specifically academy schools in England--can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. In England there have been two phases of academy school introduction, the first in the 2000s being a school improvement programme for schools serving…

This report evaluates the current state of research on New York City charter schools. Overall, their effect on student performance is unambiguously positive.The research however, is more dated and limited in scope than proponents and critics of charters appreciate. While the research on charter schools across the U.S. is growing, this paper…

Based on data on vocational education, skills, employment and labour market outcomes compiled in 2018, this report provides an overview of trends and developments in ETF partner countries and aims to raise awareness on the use of indicators to drive the policy cycle.