Policymakers have renewed calls for expanding instructional time in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We establish a set of empirical facts about time in school, synthesize the literature on the causal effects of instructional time, and conduct a case study of time use in an urban district. On average, instructional time in U.S. public schools is…

School bullying is widespread and has substantial social costs. One in five U.S. high school students report being bullied each school year and these students face greater risks of serious mental health challenges that extend into adulthood. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced most students into online education, many have worried that cyberbullying…

Mixed evidence on the relationship between school closure and COVID-19 prevalence could reflect focus on large-scale levels of geography, limited ability to address endogeneity, and demographic variation. Using county-level CDC COVID-19 data through June 15, 2020, two matching strategies address potential heterogeneity: nearest geographic neighbor…

This brief gives a snapshot of how school districts across the country are currently planning for fall 2020, how they are planning for contingencies of COVID-19 spread, and how this varies based on district characteristics. From August 17-21, we reviewed district websites, social media, and local news to collect data from a sample of 477 districts…

Schools across Pennsylvania and around the country are beginning the 2020-2021 school year while COVID-19 remains a threat in widely varying degrees, in different communities, and at different times. Every school that is opening its building to students--part-time or full-time, starting now or later in the school year--needs to contemplate the…

This is the report for the fourth survey deployed to capture a snapshot of the impacts of COVID-19 on higher education. It provides updated data for fall course plans, fall calendar start/end plans, course session plans and undergraduate enrollment indicators. In addition, new data is reported on social distancing measures, tuition plans, and…

The 2020-21 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) is a nationally representative survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. State-level data are also available for public schools, principals, and teachers. NTPS collects data on core topics including teacher and…

According to the American Community Survey (ACS), about a quarter (26 percent) of the population of the United States over the age of three was enrolled in school in 2018. This report brings together the latest data from both the ACS and the Current Population Survey (CPS), two complementary Census Bureau surveys that provide data on school…

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on questions we asked about how comfortable parents are returning their children to K-12 school buildings during the pandemic, which schooling options parents…

In 2020, 1.5 billion students in 188 countries/economies were locked out of their schools. Students everywhere have been faced with schools that are open one day and closed the next, causing massive disruption to their learning. With the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic still raging, many education systems are still struggling, and the situation is…

The 2024 North Carolina Education Primer serves as a fact-based guide to public education in North Carolina. The Primer provides a comprehensive overview of how education policy is made, along with the current state of public education and the policies guiding it. The Forum produces this guide in order to inform current policymakers, candidates…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) closed its campuses and district offices on March 12, 2020. On March 30, 2020, HISD moved to remote learning, which included distance learning, independent study, live online meetings, and completing assignments online or paper-based packets mailed to the home.…

This brief gives an update on our nationally representative sample of school district reopening plans. This update comes at a critical time, as a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic once again forces school system leaders to rethink plans to welcome students safely to campuses, and spiking caseloads raise a new round of public health fears for…

On May 10th, 2020 the Prime Minister announced a phased return of some children to school in England from June 1st. Schools had been closed to all but vulnerable and keyworker children since March 20th, meaning that most children have been educated at home for a period of 10 weeks, and some year groups are not expected to return to school until…

The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on public education systems around the world has been both rapid and profound. The global onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ensuing cancellation of face-to-face kindergarten to grade 12 (K-12) classes across Canada, has created the need to document and research its immediate impacts by means of a…