Education reform legislation has led to an upwelling of mandatory teacher evaluation for all elementary, middle school, and high school educators, including those who teach special education. While this reform effort aimed to improve overall teacher effectiveness and student learning outcomes, the teacher evaluation for special education is a…

The road to achieving racial justice in the nation is marked by times of unspeakable tragedy followed by resilience and recovery and unexpected setbacks overcome by reinvention. As the nation emerges from a devastating and deadly pandemic, it stands again on the precipice of recovery and reinvention. Many school districts have returned to normal,…

New Jersey's state grant program delivers the highest level of need-based aid per student in the country. And the state's major grant program, the Tuition Aid Grant (TAG), funds all eligible students, rather than excluding students when the funding runs out. But different levels of grant aid for enrollment in different institutions within sectors,…

The far-reaching impacts of COVID-19 have generated unprecedented challenges for higher education institutions, states, and individuals over the past year. This includes significant budget implications that resulted in a strained and uncertain fiscal environment as states seek to meet goals and priorities while providing affordable and accessible…

RAND researchers studied more than 450,000 recipients of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) -- the nation's most generous state-funded grant program per state resident college student -- to explore whether getting larger amounts of grant aid led to higher graduation rates for students at varying income levels and attending two-year, four-year,…

In recent years, much of the education policy debate has become consumed by America's "culture war." State legislators and school boards across the country have questioned whether public schools ought to reinforce, or transform, America's civic culture. Over 90 percent of Americans believe arts are important for the education system, and…

The United States and Pennsylvania economies are at a pivot point: Will we build forward better or will we build back the same? Will we make things even worse? This report revisits the policy choices that lie ahead. Most of this annual checkup on the Pennsylvania economy, the 26th "State of Working Pennsylvania," presents labor market…

The Agricultural Act of 2014 authorized $200 million for the development, implementation, and evaluation of pilot projects to test innovative strategies to reduce dependency on and increase employment among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. California, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi,…

The COVID Constituency, comprising a growing movement of parents, teachers, students, education leaders, and organizations, desires systemic changes in education, rather than a reversion back to the pre-pandemic system. As state and district policymakers consider how they want to use their federal dollars for education transformation, it is…

This report provides the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) with comprehensive information about the status of autism research funding among federal agencies and private research organizations in the U.S. This edition of the report features analysis of funding trends in autism research from 2008-2018, the first breakdown of the…

Public institutions of higher education have a dual mandate to provide the best possible education while also maintaining accessibility to students within its state. This study explores the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences associated with the retention of Pell-eligible, academically at-risk freshmen, and examines an academic…

Public health efforts have emphasized changes to policies, systems, and environments (PSEs) to improve health behaviors for individuals and communities. Extension has increasingly emphasized these approaches, particularly for the work of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) agents. In part, this emphasis on PSEs in Extension has been driven by…

As U.S. school leaders anticipate the end of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and contemplate possible budget shortfalls, they will have to make hard choices about how best to leverage limited resources to improve student outcomes. With the stakes high, lawmakers and experts urge school system leaders to rely on research and…

In this article, we introduce the term "vulnerability to achievement stressors," which refers to differentially low achievement when shifts in the educational environment "stress" or threaten the capacity of an individual or a group of individuals to make academic progress. We also introduce a methodological framework for…

America's regional public universities (RPUs) serve a unique role as the portal through which so many students and the nation's future workforce gain the skills needed to face the economic challenges of the 21st century. RPU programs offer 4.9 million students, who are increasingly of color, low income, first generation, and working adults, the…