Background: School systems have struggled to staff special education positions for decades (Billingsley, 1993; Cowan et al., 2016; Mason-Williams et al., 2020), but recent data suggest special education staffing challenges are now a crisis. As of October 2023, 21% of schools, and 30% of high-poverty schools, reported at least one special educator…

Despite evidence to the contrary, there is a continuing charge of 'poor quality courses' -- or that higher education provides little benefit to individuals -- some parts of the media and government. The Office for Students (OfS) acknowledges that 99% of students in England are on courses where employment outcomes satisfy requirements. There is a…

Like many states across the nation, California is facing persistent teacher shortages. School districts continue to find it difficult to fill vacancies with fully credentialed teachers, especially math, science, special education, and bilingual education teachers. Teacher shortages impact student learning as districts resort to relying on a…

Many school districts consider family preferences in allocating students to schools. In theory, this approach provides traditionally disadvantaged families greater access to high-quality schools by weakening the link between residential location and school assignment. We leverage data on the school choices made by over 233,000 New York City…

The purpose of our instructional design team is to service the faculty and staff of a multi-campus state university system with pay and benefits educational programming. Our learning population includes the university's diverse workforce of over 25,000 benefits-eligible employees. We support faculty and staff with resources to make informed…

Students beginning college chemistry are expected to arrive prepared with fundamental, prerequisite conceptual understanding and skills from high school. While some topics may be reviewed explicitly in the course, prerequisite material-including hidden prerequisites often overlooked by faculty-is typically considered assumed prior knowledge and…

It is evident that more qualitative research on Advanced Placement [AP] classrooms for students from marginalized backgrounds is needed to uncover how AP practices and pedagogies might better serve students who had been historically excluded from the AP Program. I asked my former calculus students (32 total - 22 participated) from my last three…

Modern technology plays an important role in helping students from all walks of life to overcome barriers and benefit from teaching and learning. However, due to a lack of knowledge or skills with regards to educational technologies, K-12 teachers struggle to harness the full potential of digitalisation to support student learning and engagement,…

This paper examines the effects of a comprehensive performance pay program implemented in high-need schools using administrative data from Louisiana. Exploiting the within-student variation in the timing of implementation, we find a large and significant effect beginning with the second year of the program on math achievement. Similar but…

While much has been written about how principals motivate their teachers, there is a surprising paucity of research on what motivates principals themselves. Because a principal significantly impacts the academic achievement of students and because principal turnover disproportionately impacts low-income schools, it is imperative that we find a way…

John Dewey's vision of education and of the school as a model for society was grounded in a commitment to collaboration. This view continues to inform the basic assumptions of progressive educators, especially in the USA. Collaboration in classrooms is offered as the basis and matrix for collaboration beyond them, in the civic realm. But the civic…

Big Data refers to large and disparate volumes of data generated by people, applications and machines. It is gaining increasing attention from a variety of domains, including education. What are the challenges of engaging with Big Data research in education? This paper identifies a wide range of critical issues that researchers need to consider…

In this manuscript, we use the construct of "critical epistemologies of place" to frame our exploration of how to support engineering design among youth who have historically been marginalized from the domain, and its implications for educational settings. We present an in-depth longitudinal case study of one 12-year-old African American…

Judgement interferes with the development of all relationships. For students and families who have experienced trauma, judgement can be particularly devastating as it may further damage the survivor's already compromised sense of safety, trust, and belonging. As educators, we must develop non-judgmental attitudes toward students and families, yet…

Contextual admissions have been hotly debated for years, but the Office for Students recently complained, 'There has been minimal research on students' views of contextual offers.' To fill this gap, HEPI conducted the first major study into what students think of this issue. Key findings in the report include: (1) three-quarters of full-time…