In 2020, American society encountered a flashpoint. Racism, both individual and systemic, was laid bare by an environment in which racist attitudes and beliefs became prevalent, by violence against Black Americans, and by the COVID-19 pandemic. This report seeks to reimagine college admission and financial aid through an equity lens. The report…

Despite limitations and challenges, teaching about difficult histories is an essential aspect of social studies courses and units across grade levels. This practical resource highlights stories of K-12 practitioners who have critically examined and reflected on their experiences with planning and teaching histories identified as difficult.…

The increasing tension between the perceived necessity of a college degree and the challenge of paying for it has led to a proliferation of financial aid policy in the U.S. and around the world. More students are receiving more aid today, and more different types of aid, than ever before. Half a century of policy experimentation has led to an…

Educational equity has been a long-standing goal among legislators since the passing of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 (McLaughlin, 1975). While initially the focus was examining the disparity in resources available to schools in different geographical areas, as accountability measures were enacted, the achievement gap between…

The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts' choices of learning modality -- whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction -- over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning…

The exclusion of caregivers and other stakeholders from conversations about child care policy design exacerbates inequities in the sector. By design, women, people of color, parents, people without wealth or high incomes, and child care providers are severely underrepresented in positions of power, including the government positions that influence…

In the 2017-18 school year, 18% of New York students opted out of a mandated state assessment test. On Long Island, that number was closer to 50% of students opting out of one or more tests. The implications of this phenomenon are far-reaching, but unknown. This study seeks to better understand both who opts out and the potential impact of opt out…

The concept of nanotechnology has existed since Richard Feynman's inaugural lecture at the California Institute of Technology in 1959. As a coined term, the honor went to Norio Taniguchi in 1974. Since those two epochs, like any other STEM field, there are two significant concentrations: how to teach it and what it means epistemologically as a…

This qualitative case study investigated the processes by which an elementary school principal uses Distributed Leadership to accomplish leadership tasks and progress toward organizational goals. It aimed to provide a thick description of the practices, behaviors, perspectives, and experiences of the participants of Distributed Leadership. The…

The Advanced Placement (AP) program created by the College Board offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. The AP course curriculum program comprises a panel of college-level educators and experts in a particular field of study. Colleges and Universities may grant placement and course credit to those students who…

This qualitative study examined the experiences of formerly incarcerated students in community colleges. In this study, participants described how they made meaning of their postsecondary education experience through their decision to start college, the college preparation, and faculty interactions that collectively influenced their academic…

Social capital is the constructive potential of motivation, initiative and activation that emerges in the context of trust, solidarity, collaboration and goodwill. The potential for social capital to generate benefits for both individuals and organizations makes it worth investigating in order to better understand the processes that bring it into…

Millions of students with disabilities in the United States have access to educational programming to assist and provide special education support services. In existence for mere decades, special education as it currently stands was founded on groundbreaking legislation and refining law in the form of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act…

We study the importance of job-related and non-job-related factors in students' college major choices. Using a staggered intervention that allows us to provide students information about many different aspects of majors and to compare the magnitudes of the effects of each piece of information, we show that major choices depend on a wide set of…

Schools are in the process of incorporating professional development activities to prepare technology-proficient educators to utilize information and communication tools to meet the pedagogical needs of 21st-century students and learners. This research addresses the challenges of and preservation possibilities for the digital work of learning…