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This brief explores the unique financial circumstances of parenting students, a population that makes up nearly a quarter of all postsecondary students. We find that parenting students are more likely to report experiencing financial struggles, use public assistance more often, and are more reliant on credit cards. At the same time, parenting students are more likely to have additional caregiving responsibilities beyond their children, putting them at greater risk for financial and personal burnout, which may impact their ability to stay enrolled.

Critical race theory (CRT) and the high-profile projects pushing the radical ideology's discriminatory ideas are trying to divide Americans by skin color and pit them against each other. The cultural fissures are manifesting in education, with heated arguments about curricula and classroom activism. This "Backgrounder" estimates how engaging in cultural issues facing this country could produce important gains for school choice advocates. It analyzes results of a nationally representative survey that asks a variety of questions about both cultural issues and school choice. Overall, respondents are supportive of school choice and strongly oppose social justice ideology. These findings are consistent with other surveys. Moreover, respondents who are skeptical about the woke agenda tend to be most supportive of school choice. This "Backgrounder" presents three important findings. First, that support for school choice is moderately high. Second, that radical cultural critiques of American values are extremely unpopular. And third, that respondents who are unsure about cultural issues are a potentially valuable source of support for school choice advocates. If people who do not have opinions about social justice ideology could be informed about the issues and come to see them as problematic, there are reasons to believe that school choice support would grow meaningfully. [This report was produced with efi (Electronics for Imaging, Inc.).]

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 imperative that they tap into the experiences and priorities of the communities that have the most at stake. The COVID Constituency seeks to collect firsthand experiences, perceptions, and priorities from students, parents, and teachers, and then translate them into actionable policies that will fundamentally change education for the better. This report anchors this work, providing an initial landscape of existing education opinion surveys conducted since the start of the pandemic and identifying clear and significant public support for bold education initiatives. The report introduces the COVID Constituency and discusses the inadequacies and widening chasms of the pre-pandemic education system; the concerns and priorities of the new movement; and planning and funding considerations for bold change.

EdChoice and Braun Research conducted its annual survey to gauge the opinions of the American public (N = 1,209) and school parents (N = 1,238) on topics like the state of K-12 education, their schooling preferences, choice reforms and the current pandemic--to name a few. Both survey samples are nationally representative of those respective populations. [For the 2019 report, "2019 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Busing, Technology, and School Choice," see ED600665.]

This resource outlines a menu of actionable strategies for local leaders for workforce-related recovery efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding recession. These strategies focus on evidence-based interventions and approaches which promote inclusive recovery. We categorize these strategies by goal, type of action, and phase of pandemic reopening so local leaders can choose options best suited for their current circumstances. For each strategy we provide a description, supporting evidence, specific actions for local leaders, and useful examples and resources.

The Afterschool Alliance's fourth edition of "America after 3PM" provides a detailed accounting of the circumstances and conditions of U.S. children during the hours of 3 to 6 p.m. and compares afterschool program participation and unmet demand statistics for 2020 with results from 2004, 2009, and 2014. It identifies trends in afterschool program offerings, parent satisfaction with their child's afterschool program, and overall parent perceptions of afterschool programs. Additionally, this report looks at traditionally marginalized communities, including children in low-income families and children of color, to examine opportunity gaps. The need for increased investment in afterschool is especially urgent with the coronavirus pandemic forcing many schools to move to a distance-learning model or operate on a hybrid schedule of in-person and virtual classes. The October 2020 survey of parents found that more than 3 in 4 agree that Congress should provide additional funding for afterschool programs to help provide a supervised, enriching environment during virtual school days. [For the 2014 edition, see "America after 3PM: Afterschool Programs in Demand" (ED611371). Additional funding for this report was provided by the Altria Group.]

Since the early years of the United States, public schools have been expected to fulfill multiple purposes that benefit the whole society as well as individuals. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has jolted us into a stranger, harsher, and more challenging future than most would have predicted. Mass closures of school buildings have created unprecedented disruption and have left teachers and school leaders struggling to carry out the most basic education functions however they can. The current crisis will transform public education in dramatic and unpredictable ways. Education leaders and teachers will need to adapt and plan. With children at home, many parents are gaining a better appreciation of the expertise and contributions of teachers and school leaders. Families are recognizing the importance of services like school lunch and breakfast programs. This heightened awareness can be useful in marshalling public support to help schools through the challenges that lie ahead. To support this effort, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) at the George Washington University has issued this report, which draws on the ideas in one of CEP's most popular publications, "Why We Still Need Public Schools," and reconsiders them in the current context. This new report highlights the multiple purposes filled by public schools in American society and discusses why, in this time of upheaval, it is crucial to maintain a robust public education system. [For the report "Why We Still Need Public Schools," see ED503799. For the companion report, "The History and Evolution of Public Education in the US," see ED606970.]

This is the seventh edition of EdChoice's "Schooling in America Survey." Each year, researchers poll the general public on a range of issues in K-12 education. In 2019, the polling results are based on a nationally representative sample of the general public that includes 1,810 online and phone interviews. Over time, EdChoice has increasingly cast a spotlight on the opinions and attitudes of parents of school-age children and public school teachers. EdChoice continues to poll greater numbers of those stakeholders in this edition. Researchers surveyed 435 parents who currently have children in elementary or secondary schools, as well as an additional 394 parents who no longer have school-age children. They also obtained completed online surveys from 601 current public school teachers. This year, researchers collected additional interviews from those born in 1981 or later--beyond the general public sample--to obtain more robust oversamples of Generation Z (N = 637) and Millennials (N = 617). Researchers asked their standard questions about schooling experiences and educational choice reforms, but went further to learn how people feel about hot-button K-12 subjects that seem to polarize lawmakers and advocates, including busing, teacher protests, and children's use of technology. Findings reveal the following: (1) Parents' schooling preferences do not match their kids' actual educational experiences; (2) People like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) best, especially when they are open to all families; (3) People do not know what schooling costs--public or private--but most still think public schools need more money; and (4) Younger generations are most supportive of busing students to schools outside their assigned district, and current public school teachers really oppose it. [The team at Braun Research assisted in project development. For the 2018 report, "2018 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Parent and Teacher Experiences, Accountability, and School Choice," see ED600702.]

Governor Gavin Newsom campaigned on a "cradle to career" education strategy that identified childcare and early education as key priorities. The Governor's 2019 Budget Proposal follows through with the inclusion of several initiatives aimed at increasing support for children five and younger. Despite strong evidence that high-quality early education programs can have a powerful impact on children's future success in school, college, and the workforce, California voters rank new investments in prenatal and early childhood services below other educational priorities, including improving the quality of K-12 education and making college affordable. Building public support for aggressive investment to expand access to and improve quality of early education programs is likely to require more active engagement on this issue by the Governor and his allies.

Now that competing versions of HB 3 have been passed in each chamber, it is up to the House and Senate to work together to smooth out the differences. While there is a lot of agreement within the two versions of this bill, there are glaring discrepancies. This brief describes the discrepancies of the House and Senate bills in the following subjects: (1) property tax reforms; (2) the use of current or prior year values; (3) teacher pay; and (4) student-based funding.

In this brief, authors Michael Ettlinger, Jordan Hensley, and Julia Vieira analyze how much the governments of different countries spend, and on what, to illuminate the range of fiscal policy options available and provide a basis for determining which approaches work best. They report that the United States ranks twenty-fourth in government spending as a share of GDP out of twenty-nine countries for which recent comparable data are available. The key determinant of where countries rank in overall government spending is the amount spent on social protection. The United States ranks last in spending on social protection as a share of GDP and twenty-second in per capita spending. The United States ranks at or near the top in military, health care, education, and law enforcement spending. Measuring government spending by different methods and including tax expenditures does not appear to significantly alter the conclusion that the United States is a low-tax, low-spending country relative to the other countries examined, particularly when compared to its fellow higher-income countries. [This paper is an evolution of a previous work, "Comparing Public Spending and Priorities Across OECD Countries" (ED606844).]

With the release of this comprehensive new report, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership has provided the mentoring field with important new data about the scope of mentoring in the United States. This report advances what is understood about mentoring in several important ways. First, it moves beyond a simple head count to explore Americans' motivations for, obstacles to, and beliefs about mentoring. Second, unlike the many surveys that focus on youth's perspectives, this study explores the perspectives of adult mentors (as well as adults who do not mentor). In doing so, it provides a depth of new understanding and a clear path toward fuller, more satisfactory engagement with caring adults. Of particular importance, this report contains the most comprehensive survey of informal mentors to date. Given that far more adults serve as natural, informal mentors, and efforts--by both MENTOR and MENTOR's Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring--to support, enlist, and train informal mentors are underway, this information is sorely needed. [This report was produced with Pacific Market Research.]

This report is the result of a year-long exploration of the effects of charter schools and the issues that surround them. Each of its eleven issues-based stories tells what the Network for Public Education (NPE) has learned not only from research, but also from talking with parents, community members, teachers, and school leaders around the nation who have observed the effects of charters on their communities and neighborhood schools. While stories of individual charter successes are well covered by the media, substantive issues surrounding the explosion of charter school growth are too often brushed aside. The purpose of this report is to bring those issues to light.

This brief encourages leaders to utilize their influence to help alleviate the long-standing achievement gaps in the education system, because when students flourish, entire communities can flourish as well. The authors want to ensure that grasstops are intentional in their advocacy for black students. The "Lift Every Voice and Lead Toolkit" provides tangible tips, strategies, talking points and resources to help grasstops who are serious about using their influence to make transformational change for all youth. [For the first report in this series, "Done to Us, Not with Us: African American Parent Perceptions of K-12 Education," see ED573649. For the second report, "Lift Every Voice and Lead: African American Leaders' Perceptions of K-12 Education Reform," see ED588631.]

The purpose of this annual survey developed and reported by the Friedman Foundation and our partner, Braun Research, Inc., is to measure public opinion on, and in some cases awareness or knowledge of, a range of K-12 education topics and reforms. We report response levels, differences ("margins"), and intensities for the country and a range of demographic groups. We also track response changes over time when possible.

The Common Core State Standards represent an exciting step forward for California, and for the nation as a whole, in supporting instruction that can better prepare students for college and career success. Concurrent with the transition to the new standards, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), of which California is a governing member, is introducing a new, large-scale assessment system in 2015 that aligns with the Common Core. The SBAC assessments aim to capture student learning in a deeper and more authentic way than the state's previous assessment system--the California Standards Test (CST). This is not the first time California has transitioned to a new system of academic standards, instruction, and assessment. In particular, potential parallels exist between the SBAC assessments and the short-lived California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) of the early 1990s. As educators embrace the challenges associated with assessment of the Common Core, it is instructive to learn from the CLAS experience, both to build on its successes and to avoid the mistakes that led to its demise. In September 2012, the California Collaborative on District Reform released a brief that drew connections between assessment efforts tied to the Common Core and the CLAS. Reflecting on both the successes and failures of the CLAS, "Learning From the Past" identified four key lessons that should inform current activities related to Common Core implementation and assessment. The standards and assessments landscape has evolved dramatically since the 2012 brief was published, and education leaders have taken steps to avert some of the problems that undermined the CLAS. Nevertheless, key challenges remain. The goal of this brief is to chart the progress that has been made since the original brief was released in 2012, while also highlighting areas that remain in need of attention as the state continues to develop and implement student assessment systems around the Common Core. Doing so emphasizes the importance of assessment not solely as an external accountability tool, but as an essential component of implementing the Common Core. As the first administration of the SBAC assessments begins in spring 2015, the brief will be most effective if read as a set of considerations for improving the ways in which educators at all levels can respond to evidence of, and develop better approaches to, improving student learning. [Additional funding for the development of this brief was provided by the California Education Policy Fund, and the Silver Giving Foundation.]

2013 was a year of positive change for millions of children, and each child has an individual story. The stories of individual children are their own; the efforts to reach them are the stories of UNICEF in 2013, and every year since the founding of UNICEF. 2013 either brought no change or violent change for far too many children, and disparities--among children from rich and poor countries and communities, among children from rural and urban environments, and among children from different ethnic groups--remain high, even as the 2015 target date for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals approaches. This report outlines UNICEF's efforts to reach the children who have gone unreached--to drive change for the most vulnerable, disadvantaged, and excluded children. The children's rights are not fulfilled as long as they are unreached, deprived, abused, exploited, and denied a voice. This report spotlights the Strategic Plan 2014-2017, UNICEF's blueprint for fulfilling the promises of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and directing equity-focused work for children beyond 2015. UNICEF's efforts in 2013 focused on multiple fronts: driving innovation; deepening partnerships; and engaging the public to mobilize change for children. In all UNICEF does, they continue efforts to streamline operations, to strengthen program monitoring to find out what is working and what is not, and to become more transparent. [Foreword by Anthony Lake.]

"America after 3PM" began in 2004, precisely because of the absence of reliable data about such topics. That year, the Afterschool Alliance set out to fill the information gap, conducting what was at that point the most in-depth study on how children spend their time after school. The 2014 "America after 3PM" edition spans a decade of data chronicling how children spend the hours between 3 and 6 p.m.--the hours after school ends and before parents typically return home from work. Together with its predecessor reports, it serves as a resource for policymakers, educators, parents and advocates on the trends of afterschool program participation, demand for afterschool programs, and the number of children who are alone and unsupervised during the after school hours. The data in this report show that parents are increasingly turning to afterschool programs to meet their own and their children's needs in the hours after school. The combined demand for afterschool, both met and unmet, exceeds 50 percent of school-age children in the United States. Parents who are fortunate enough to have access to afterschool programs are highly satisfied with those programs and are increasingly satisfied with aspects of the programs that are linked to quality. [For the 2009 edition, see "America after 3PM: The Most In-Depth Study of How America's Children Spend Their Afternoons" (ED506748).]

A state education agency (SEA) can pull a powerful lever for school turnaround by setting goals publicly and releasing reports on progress toward those goals at turnaround schools to build public support for turnaround efforts. SEAs can gather information for reporting from data they already have available. This report clarifies indicators and metrics that can be most helpful for tracking progress toward goals and knowing where to find the data to inform those measures. The templates in this packet provided guidelines that will be useful to SEAs for setting bold and achievable goals and reporting publicly on metrics for low-performing schools. Keeping sight of these goals will redefine student success and provide impetus for public support around bold decisions required for school turnaround.

As New York State transitions from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy, few institutions are playing a more important role than the state's 35 community colleges. With more than 328,000 students enrolled statewide, community colleges are boosting New York's economic competitiveness by upgrading the skills of a large chunk of the state's workforce. They are enabling displaced workers to acquire skills in occupations that are growing, and helping businesses across the state meet their evolving workforce needs-from photonics in Rochester to nanotech in Albany. Perhaps most importantly, community colleges have become the state's key opportunity institutions. At a time when a high school diploma is no longer sufficient to obtain a decent paying job in most industries but the cost of getting a college education has skyrocketed, the state's community colleges offer the most accessible path for tens of thousands of low- and moderate- income New Yorkers to obtain a post-secondary credential. However, the state's community colleges have only just begun to deliver on their potential and face enormous challenges in the years ahead. Far too few students who enroll at community colleges in New York end up graduating or moving on to a four-year institution. Statewide, only 35 percent of full-time students who enroll in community college courses obtain an associate or bachelor's degree after six years. And in New York City, where a much higher percentage of students qualify as low-income, the six-year graduation rate is just 29 percent. While some schools do better than others at graduating students, every community college in the state has a six-year graduation rate below 50 percent. This report details the increasing importance of community colleges to New York State's economy and documents why raising graduation rates at the state's community colleges by even a small amount would result in significant benefits to the state's employers, young adults and the working poor. [This report was written with the assistance of David Shaffer.]

The low rates at which U.S. college students complete a degree and the amount time they spend in remedial coursework are national problems. The situation is particularly acute for low-income and other underserved youth, including populations such as Hispanic students that are growing the fastest in the country and that have some of the lowest success rates in our K-12 and postsecondary education systems. It is a problem not only for the students, and not only because our economy and democracy depend on well-educated citizens, but also because it represents an inefficient use of personal and public investments in education. Every student who falls short of the goal of earning a high school diploma and a college degree represents a financial investment that did not pay off in a credential of value in the labor market. In response, state policymakers and major foundations have invested in a variety of strategies to improve the college readiness of high school graduates, reduce the need for remedial courses in college, improve college completion rates, and reduce the "time to completion" of a degree. This brief supports the economic logic of such investments, in particular those that result in more low-income youth attaining the postsecondary credentials that can yield enormous benefits to students, families, and taxpayers. [This report was produced by Jobs for the Future's Early College Design Services.]

Every week in the United States, nearly 11 million children younger than age 5 are in some type of child care arrangement. On average, these children spend 36 hours a week in child care. While parents are children's first and most important teachers, child care programs provide early learning for millions of young children daily, having a profound impact on their development and readiness for school. For many parents, one of the initial shocks in becoming a parent is discovering the high price of child care. "Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2013 Report" uses 2012 data to show the average fees families are charged for legally operating child care centers and family child care homes in every state and the District of Columbia. The report looks at why child care is so expensive and families' options for paying for child care. The following tabular appendixes are included: (1) 2012 Average Annual Cost of Full-Time Care by State; (2) 2012 Ranking of Least-Affordable Child Care for an Infant in a Center; (3) 2012 Ranking of Least-Affordable Child Care for a 4-Year-Old Child in a Center; (4) 2012 Ranking of Least-Affordable Child Care for a School-Aged Child in a Center; (5) 2012 Average Child Care Center Costs and Median Housing Costs by State; (6) 2012 Average Annual Costs of Full-Time Child Care in a Center and Public College Tuition and Fees by State; (7) 2012 Average Costs for Center-Based Care for an Infant Compared to Varying Poverty Levels; (8) 2012 Average Costs for Center-Based Care for a 4-Year-Old Compared to Varying Poverty Levels; (9) 2012 Average Costs for an Infant in a Family Child Care Home Compared to Varying Poverty Levels; (10) 2012 Average Costs for a 4-Year-Old in a Family Child Care Home Compared to Varying Poverty Levels; (11) 2012 Ranking of Affordability of Center-Based Care for Single Mothers; (12) 2012 Urban-Rural Cost Difference for Center-Based Care, by State; and (13) 2012 Urban-Rural Cost Difference for Family Child Care, by State. A list of resources for families and a glossary are also provided. [For the 2012 report, see ED559910.]

The infrastructure for arts and cultural support in the United States is complex and adaptive. Citizens who enjoy the arts can choose from a wide array of drama, visual and media arts, dance, music, and literature available in formal and informal settings--theaters, museums, and concert halls, but also libraries, schools, places of worship, open-air venues, restaurants or nightclubs, and, via technology, at home or on the move. In the last two decades, the number of arts and cultural organizations has grown, even as revenues from sales and attendance have risen to all-time high levels. In the following chapters, this monograph identifies three basic types of financial support for the arts: (1) direct public funds awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and by state, regional, and local arts agencies; (2) funding from federal departments and agencies other than the NEA; and (3) private sector contributions, which make up the lion's share of contributed income for arts organizations. This third revenue stream flows from individual and corporate donors and from charity foundations, and it flows more smoothly because of incentives in the U.S. tax system.

California has long been viewed by the rest of the nation as leader in many areas, including education. The state's K-12 and higher education systems were once the envy of other states. Of late, though, the news from the Golden State has not been so rosy. For the last three decades California has faced increased demands on public services while suffering through economic cycles that have had exaggerated effects on the state budget. The result has been increased competition for limited resources, budget uncertainty and steadily eroding state dollars for a local schools. At the same time, demands on schools to produce better educated students have increased. In 1999 the state introduced its own standard-based accountability system (the Public Schools Accountability Act), which was then overlaid by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. As expectations for students and schools have risen, however, and budgets have fluctuated wildly, relatively little systemic education reform has taken place. California faces major challenges that the state seems unable to tackle. Given this backdrop, how does the public view California's schools and education policy effectiveness? Do voters understand the challenges that California faces, and are they prepared to make the tough choices and tradeoffs that potential solutions entail? This brief presents the findings from recent polling directed by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, and conducted by M4 Strategies/Tulchin Research. The PACE/USC Rossier poll is a new attempt to learn in more detail about how Californians perceive and understand the challenges now facing California's education system. [For "How Californians View Education Standards, Testing and Accountability: Results from the Third PACE/USC Rossier Poll," see ED564340.]

Researchers and policy analysts have documented the challenges in collecting pre-K and other early childhood data, and reports on disparities in full-day kindergarten from the Education Commission of the States and the Children's Defense Fund place the disorganized state of kindergarten data on full display. But in both cases, organizations have focused on data at the state level. In this issue brief, the authors turn to an arguably knottier problem: the dearth of reliable, complete, and comparable data on pre-K and kindergarten in school districts and local communities. As the Federal Education Budget Project expands to include data on publicly funded pre-K, the extent of the problem has come into greater focus (see "Including Pre-K Data in FEBP"). New questions about kindergarten data have surfaced as well. This brief pinpoints problems of incomplete data at the local level and explains why, in many cases, the data that do exist cannot be accurately compared to data in other districts or states. It ends with a discussion of steps that states, districts, and policymakers should take to repair these holes and ensure that PreK-12 policymakers and the public have a well-informed view of the state of pre-K and kindergarten in their states and localities. (Contains 13 notes.)

In "The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State," the Thomas B. Fordham Institute criticizes local urban governance structures and presents the decentralized, charter-school-driven Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans as a successful model for fiscal and academic performance. Absent from the review is any consideration of the chronic under-funding and racial history of New Orleans public schools before Hurricane Katrina, and no evidence is provided that a conversion to charter schools would remedy these problems. The report also misreads the achievement data to assert the success of the RSD, when the claimed gains may be simply a function of shifting test standards. The report also touts the replacement of senior teachers with new and non-traditionally prepared teachers, but provides no evidence of the efficacy of this practice. Additionally, the report claims public support for the reforms, but other indicators--never addressed in the report--reveal serious concerns over access, equity, performance, and accountability. Ultimately, the report is a polemic advocating the removal of public governance and the replacement of public schools with privately operated charter networks. It is thin on data and thick on claims, and should be read with great caution by policymakers in Ohio and elsewhere. (Contains 51 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: "The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State" (ED528943).]