Civil, informed debate is essential for any healthy democracy. This is truer than ever judging from the often uncivil, fact-free public discourse one sees too often on television and social media. But does participation in formal debate training improve educational outcomes? While policy debaters historically have come from high-income public…

Helping English learners and economically disadvantaged students read as well as their more advantaged peers is a struggle for many schools. This study tested WordGen Elementary, a program to improve fourth- and fifth-grade students' ability to understand the academic language used in school and support their reading achievement. This Study…

As an independent school district, Houston Independent School District (HISD) contracted with four operators of seven External Performance Contract Campuses, or contract campuses. Houston ISD contract campuses receive funding through the district. HISD has implemented a comprehensive performance accountability and compliance monitoring system that…

This longitudinal qualitative study investigated the impact on teacher participants of using a unique laboratory approach to professional development: the Team Teaching and Learning (TTL) framework, which integrates five traits from Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon's (2001) empirical research on teacher professional learning, including…

Policymakers have long sought to raise expectations for students through standards-based reform. I examine the extent to which the Common Core State Content Standards (CC) affected student achievement and the size of achievement gaps. I merge together data on preparation for and implementation of the CC with the National Assessment of Educational…

A growing quantitative literature finds evidence that student teaching placements predict later outcomes of teacher candidates and their students, but there is little large-scale quantitative evidence about the mechanisms for these estimated relationships. We use data from a survey of STEM teachers in Washington State to better understand how…

This report summarizes grade-level promotion and graduation outcomes for 2,163 Austin Independent School District (AISD) students who participated in the DELTA Program in 2019-2020. Seventy-four percent of DELTA students in 9th through 11th grades were promoted to the next grade level and of the DELTA students in 12th grade, 83% graduated from…

The Arkansas Department of Education partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest to study the feasibility and effectiveness of using brief email and text message communications to increase the number of parent and guardian visits to the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) state literacy website. In November 2021…

This study snapshot highlights key findings from a study that examined the feasibility and effectiveness of using brief email and text message communications to increase the number of parent and guardian visits to the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) state literacy website. In November 2021 the department sent test messages to…

The full study to these appendixes examined the feasibility and effectiveness of using brief email and text message communications to increase the number of parent and guardian visits to the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) state literacy website. This document presents the following four appendixes that accompany the study:…

This report summarizes grade-level promotion and graduation outcomes for 2,646 Austin Independent School District (AISD) students who participated in the DELTA Program in 2018-2019. Seventy-one percent of DELTA students in 9th through 11th grades were promoted to the next grade level and of the DELTA students in 12th grade, 85% graduated from high…

Since 2007, nineteen Houston Independent School District (HISD) campuses have partnered with Literacy Now to offer the Reading Intervention program. The Reading Intervention program provides individualized, small group reading tutorials for at-risk students in kindergarten to second grade to create proficient readers by the end of third grade.…

The Resilient Outstanding Sisters Exemplifying Success (ROSES) program was implemented in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) during the 2019-2020 school year. The program targeted female students of color through psychosocial support and school-based mentoring by leveraging community resources, partnerships, and advocacy. A total of…

The tenth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card takes a closer look at the impact of two years of pandemic on the achievement of students on key indicators from kindergarten through college and adult education. It finds mixed results for Boston's public and public charter school students, with some areas seeing much larger changes triggered…

The ninth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card looks at how the pandemic has affected many of the indicators used to track how Boston students are doing in education from early childhood through adulthood, as well as tracking the landscape of the Opportunity Agenda's efforts to strengthen the education pipeline. This report card contains…