Search

The 11th edition of "Knocking at the College Door" comes at a critical time for the country. Many sectors of the economy face workforce shortages, while higher education faces increasing skepticism about its value. The data and analyses within these pages will likely fuel further concerns for those across higher education as the nation witnesses the arrival of a moment that has long been predicted: the peak and subsequent decline in the number of high school graduates. Adding to the uncertainty are the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to fluctuations in K-12 enrollments and to the phenomenon of learning loss across all levels of education. This edition of "Knocking" also focuses on COVID-19's impact on the nation's education pipeline. The data suggest that a sizable number of K-12 students may have left education altogether, while the students who remain in the educational systems face learning deficits. Six key findings emerged from this edition: (1) the total number of high school graduates is expected to peak in 2025 and then decline steadily through 2041; (2) the proportion of future graduating classes that come from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds -- particularly Hispanic and Multiracial graduates -- will continue to increase; (3) compared to 2023, 38 states are projected to see a decline in the number of graduates by 2041, as most regions in the U.S. continue to shrink; and (4) COVID-19's impact on the education pipeline will be felt for years to come. The information in this report can be used by policymakers, education decisionmakers, researchers, and others for a range of important uses. Released every four years, "Knocking at the College Door" has provided trusted and reliable data at the state, regional, and national levels for more than four decades.

We analyze student-level data on elementary special education identification in Washington state to explore how identification rates changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that special education identification rates dropped dramatically in March 2020 through the end of the 2019-20 school year and remained below historical norms throughout the 2020-21 school year. In the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, however, identification rates surpassed pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that school districts were catching up with the identification of students who might have been missed during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread school closures and a shift to remote learning. A growing body of research has examined the effects of remote learning on student outcomes. But the accuracy of the school modality measures used in these studies is questionable. The most common measures--based on self-reports or district website information--are often inconsistent and lack nationwide coverage. Some studies have used cell phone mobility data to identify school modalities, but there is no consensus yet on how to translate device pings into modality measures. This paper contributes to the literature on modality measurement by examining the relationship between mobile device signals and school modality prior to the pandemic and applies those findings to the pandemic period in Michigan and Washington. We compare our results to state-provided closure data and other nationwide sources, including the Return to Learn Tracker and the COVID-19 School Data Hub. Our findings indicate that cell phone mobility data can accurately predict school modality under normal conditions, but the accuracy drops during the pandemic. These results have implications for future research on educational and health outcomes during both pandemic and non-pandemic-related school closures.

In the fall of 2019, the City University of New York (CUNY) Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) provided colleges with updated guidance for designing and delivering evidence-based corequisite courses and set a timeline for the phaseout of traditional, standalone remediation by fall 2022. This CAPR report describes findings from research exploring the first year of full-scale implementation of corequisite English and math courses in the system. Drawing on interview and focus-group data with OAA administrators and with faculty and staff at seven associate-granting CUNY colleges (five of which are community colleges), the report examines how the colleges managed the transition to fully scaled corequisite courses and structured their corequisite offerings and the implications of those choices for early implementation. The authors find that all CUNY colleges participating in the study had fully scaled corequisite courses in math and English by spring 2023 and that for many of them, this marked the culmination of over a decade of experimentation with and expansion of corequisites. Also, due to the autonomy granted to colleges by OAA, the authors observe variation in scaling timelines and some variation in corequisite models, as well as in faculty and staff engagement. Interviewees identified important facilitators of the scaling process, such as OAA's mandate and timeline for scaling and financial support for course and professional development. They also identified a key challenge in understanding the implications of implementation and scaling, namely, that the co-occurrence of a new placement algorithm, the mandate, and the pandemic-induced shift to online instruction made it difficult to determine how any one of these factors contributed to changes in student success in introductory English and math courses. The report concludes with a discussion of issues to consider when scaling corequisite courses.

Education resources matter when they are allocated and used effectively. Yet, the upstream decisions school boards make about district budgets and resource allocation are understudied. In this descriptive study, we analyze data from 400 publicly available video recordings of financial deliberations in school board budget meetings between spring 2022 and spring 2023. Half of the video recordings are from school boards that received education finance training from the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. We find school boards discussed student outcomes in only 15-25% of board meetings focused on financial deliberations. Only about 11% of the variation in financial deliberations can be explained by district characteristics, student achievement, and community characteristics. We find no differences in the discussion of student outcomes for districts with and without the Edunomics training. However, descriptive evidence suggests a positive relationship between the Edunomics training and some summary measures of financial deliberations: the overall level of engagement in budgetary discussions; the likelihood per-unit cost and internal barriers (such as decision-making structure) were mentioned; and the likelihood that the budget was linked to outcomes. These findings underscore the variation in school board deliberations and suggest the potential value of training school board members to influence those deliberations.

Math achievement plays a pivotal role in students' success in school and beyond. Algebra, in particular, serves as a crucial gateway: it increases the chances a student takes advanced math in high school, which has implications for their college and career prospects. In 2023 and 2024, the American Mathematics Educator Study (AMES) surveyed teachers and principals nationwide to learn more about how students access and experience algebra in 8th and 9th grade. A key finding from the surveys: schools serving mostly low-income students are far less likely to offer algebra in 8th grade compared to those serving more affluent students. The surveys also identified other issues that can hinder equitable access to algebra and math education, including: (1) uneven access to qualified math teachers; (2) math instruction that disproportionately focuses on remedial content in disadvantaged communities; (3) limited access to advanced math courses beyond algebra in high-poverty schools; and (4) different approaches to algebra eligibility and achievement grouping (e.g., tracking) that may perpetuate inequity. These systemic inequities--in both opportunities and experiences--suggest that making algebra more available is a necessary but insufficient step towards closing gaps in access to advanced math education. The brief is based on a working paper which examines how America's students access and experience algebra in 8th and 9th grade.

The effect of remote learning on student performance has been a frequent topic of research and discussion in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little is known about the impact of remote instruction on the performance of teachers. This study documents how relative effectiveness of teachers changed when moving from in-person to remote instruction and analyzes the characteristics of teachers associated with greater relative effectiveness during remote instruction. Using matched student/teacher-level data from three large metro-Atlanta school districts, we estimate teacher value-added models to measure the association between teacher characteristics and a teacher's relative contribution to test score growth before and during the period of virtual instruction in the 2020-21 school year. We find evidence of increased variation in overall teacher effectiveness during remote instruction. Results are driven by veteran teachers, who appear relatively more effective in virtual instruction than their less-experienced peers, and by the very best in-person teachers, some of which experience large declines in relative effectiveness when shifting to remote instruction.

This CALDER research brief builds on pioneering research by the Measures of Effective Teaching Project (Kane et al., 2013) and Jackson (2018) to look at two measures of teacher quality-value-added measures (VAMs) for both test outcomes and non-test outcomes--and what they can tell education leaders about the teacher workforce. Both measures use a value-added framework to separate out a teacher's contributions to student outcomes from other factors, like a student's previous academic record or economic circumstances. By trying to isolate teacher contributions to student outcomes, the measures speak to the question, "would students be better off with a different teacher?"

Four-day school week (4DSW) schedules are growing rapidly across the U.S., with school districts citing perceived benefits to teacher recruitment and retention and student attendance as motivations for adopting the schedule. This study uses panel data from Colorado, one of the states with the highest prevalence of 4DSWs, to investigate the impacts of the 4DSWs on the percentage of teachers with shortage credentials, teacher attrition rates, and student attendance rates. Utilizing a synthetic control difference-in-differences research design, we find 4DSWs have small negative or statistically insignificant effects on teacher recruitment and retention outcomes and find little variation in these effects by school rurality. Examining student attendance outcomes, we estimate a meaningfully small 0.76 percentage point reduction in attendance rates associated with adopting a 4DSW in non-rural schools (equivalent to 46% of these schools' typical yearly fluctuations in ADA) but do not detect an effect in small rural or non-rural schools. These findings suggest that these purported benefits of 4DSWs are not realized in Colorado, warranting concern about the continued use and expansion of this schedule given prior evidence of its negative average impacts on student achievement.

Professional references are widely used in hiring decisions, yet their effectiveness remains largely understudied. This study analyzes structured ratings collected from the professional references of teacher applicants and conduct an experiment to see whether the ratings influence hiring managers' assessments of applicants and hiring decisions. There is little evidence that providing reference ratings to hiring managers influences their evaluations of candidates or hiring choices in productive ways. However, the analysis suggests that reference ratings are predictive of future job performance independent of other applicant information available to hiring managers. The result is a paradox: reference ratings offer potentially low-cost, high-value information, but hiring managers do not appear to make productive use of them.

This report provides formative data about the implementation of projects associated with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Special Education's Attract, Prepare, and Retain (APR) efforts during the 2023-24 school year. We surveyed or interviewed students and educators participating in six such projects: Developing Future Special Educators Grants, APR Mentoring Project, Networking and Learning Communities, Learning Institutes, Accelerated Programs for PK-12 Special Education Teacher Certification Grant, and American Sign Language programs. For the first three APR projects, these findings build on data from the first year of project implementation in the 2022-23 school year. And for the latter three projects that were introduced in 2023-24, these data provide early evidence about how participants view their experiences with these projects. [This project is funded by a contract with PaTTAN Pittsburgh and the Bureau of Special Education at the Pennsylvania Department of Education.]

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated student achievement, with declines rivaling those after Hurricane Katrina. These losses widened achievement gaps between historically marginalized students and their peers. Three years later, achievement remains behind pre-pandemic levels for many students. This paper examines 2022-23 academic recovery efforts across eight districts, including tutoring, small group instruction, after-school, extended year, double-dose, digital learning, and expert teacher interventions. Across 22 math and reading interventions, most were delivered to fewer students and for less time than planned. We find positive effects for one tutoring program on math scores and two tutoring programs on reading scores, ranging from 0.22 to 0.33 SD. Each of these programs served a very small share of the district's students and was unlikely to play a major role in district-wide academic recovery. Finally, we find that having an "expert" teacher with high evaluation scores as opposed to a non-expert teacher significantly improves student achievement by 0.06 SD in math and 0.11 SD in reading. While highlighting the promise of intensive academic interventions, our findings underscore the challenges districts face in scaling such interventions to match their recovery needs. The field needs better evidence regarding successful implementation of large-scale interventions.

Teacher turnover is a perennial concern, especially in low-performing, high-poverty schools. While districts and schools may try to anticipate and mitigate turnover by surveying teachers about their future plans, existing research on whether teacher-reported intent is predictive of actual turnover behavior is mixed. Using unique survey data from teachers in 35 low-performing, high-poverty districts in Michigan linked at the teacher level to statewide administrative data, we are able to measure turnover behavior one, two, and three years following reported intent. We find that intent is a significant predictor of turnover and becomes increasingly predictive over time. We also find organizational commitment and school organizational conditions are important factors in teachers' intent and, to a lesser degree, actual turnover behavior.

In this paper we examine academic recovery in 12 mid- to large-sized school districts across 10 states during the 2021-22 school year. Our findings highlight the challenges that recovery efforts faced during the 2021-22 school year. Although, on average, math and reading test score gains during the school year reached the pace of pre-pandemic school years, they were not accelerated beyond that pace. This is not surprising given that we found that districts struggled to implement recovery programs at the scale they had planned. In the districts where we had detailed data on student participation in academic interventions, we found that recovery efforts often fell short of original expectations for program scale, intensity of treatment, and impact. Interviews with a subsample of district leaders revealed several implementation challenges, including difficulty engaging targeted students consistently across schools, issues with staffing and limitations to staff capacity, challenges with scheduling, and limited engagement of parents as partners in recovery initiatives. Our findings on the pace and trajectory of recovery and the challenges of implementing recovery initiatives raise important questions about the scale of district recovery efforts. [The working paper received additional funding from Kenneth C. Griffin and AIR Equity Initiative.]

We estimate the effects of federal pandemic-relief funding (ESSER III) for K12 schools on district-level student achievement growth in 2023. We rely on student test achievement data from over 5,000 school districts across 30 states. Our novel identification strategy exploits variation in ESSER attributable to its allocation rules and their relationship to Title I. We find that each $1,000 increase in ESSER per pupil funds led to statistically significant increases in district math scores of 0.008 standard deviations and similar but statistically insignificant increases in ELA scores. Our heterogeneity analysis suggests impacts were not even across district pre-pandemic spending levels, student race, or urbanicity. Our estimates provide some insight into how much investment may be needed for a full academic recovery from the pandemic: to recover losses remaining after 2023, we estimate schools would need to spend $9,000 to $13,000 per pupil.

We use student-level data on elementary special education identification from Washington state to explore student identification rates in the months immediately after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and over 2 subsequent years. Special education identification rates dropped dramatically in March 2020 through the end of the 2019-20 school year and remained below historical norms through 2020-21 before returning to pre-pandemic levels early in 2021-22. The magnitude of these effects implies that over 8,000 fewer elementary students were identified for special education services during the pandemic in Washington than would have been expected based on prior trends.

The 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey Origins, Worlds, and Life recommended that "NASA develop scientific exploration strategies, as it has for Mars, in areas of broad scientific importance, e.g., Venus... that have an increasing number of U.S. missions and international collaboration opportunities" (OWL, p.22-10). In NASA's initial responses to that Decadal Survey, the agency asserted that "...specific scientific exploration strategies should be community generated by bodies such as the Analysis Groups," thus placing the onus on the planetary community to generate and support these exploration strategies. In late 2022, the Venus Exploration Analysis Group began a project to develop a new exploration strategy for Venus, reflecting the 2021 selections of the VERITAS, DAVINCI, and EnVision missions and the sweeping comparative planetology recommendations relevant to Venus in Origins, Worlds, and Life. This is that strategy. Taking a broad look at the scientific, technological, and programmatic advances required to address the key outstanding questions that Venus poses, and predicated on VERITAS, DAVINCI, and EnVision flying as planned in the early 2030s, this report outlines a set of actions available to NASA, VEXAG, and the planetary science community at large to establish a sustained program of Venus exploration in the years and decades ahead. Key to this approach is recognizing Venus as a unique setting where multiple, cross-disciplinary, Decadal-level planetary, Earth, heliophysics, and exoplanet science questions can be addressed, as well as being a worthy target of exploration in its own right. This report offers Assessments of the current state of Venus exploration, and Actions for the U.S. and international Venus community, as well as NASA, to consider. This strategy is a living document and should be updated as warranted., Comment: A New Strategy for the Exploration of Venus

Most states responded to the onset of the pandemic by temporarily granting teachers Emergency licenses. These licenses allowed teachers to work in classrooms without passing the typical licensure exams. Since then, several states have extended their use of Emergency licenses, raising questions about how these policies impact the composition of the teacher workforce and student outcomes. In this paper, we examine the result of these policies using data on multiple cohorts of Emergency licensed teachers (ELTs) who taught in Massachusetts between 2021 and 2023. We find that ELTs were slightly more likely to remain in the same school and in the teaching workforce than teachers from other entry routes. However, ELTs' students scored significantly lower on standardized tests in math and science than other students in the same school and same year. Our findings are at odds with earlier, more positive assessments of Emergency licensure in Massachusetts. Our updated results appear to be driven by more recent cohorts of ELTs, rather than the teachers who received Emergency licenses at the start of the pandemic. Overall, this study suggests policymakers should be cautious when drawing sweeping conclusions about the impacts of teacher licensure based solely on the earliest cohort of teachers who obtained pandemic-era Emergency licenses.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) was the largest onetime federal investment in K-12 schools in history, funneling almost $200 billion to states and school districts. We use novel data from Washington State to investigate the extent to which ESSER funding causally influenced spending on school personnel. We argue one cannot infer this directly from ESSER claims data because of the fungibility of school budgets. Thus, we rely on a more direct signal of district hiring decisions: public education job postings scraped from district hiring websites. To address endogeneity concerns, our preferred approach employs an instrumental variables strategy that exploits a formula mechanism used to determine Title I funding for 2020-21 (and thus ESSER allocations in 2022) based on the number of Title I formula-eligible children. We find strong, arguably causal, evidence that public school hiring increased in response to the availability of ESSER funding. Specifically, we estimate that each $1,000 in ESSER allocations caused districts to seek to hire $206 in additional staff, disproportionately teachers. These estimates suggest that roughly 12,000 new staff (including 5,100 teachers) were hired in Washington because of ESSER. In the absence of new funding, school staffing budgets will likely need to contract substantially following the sunset of ESSER.

Departmentalized instruction, in which teachers specialize in one or more core subjects and instruct multiple groups of students in a day, has become increasingly prominent in elementary schools. Using 8 years of data from Massachusetts and a difference-in-differences design, we estimate the effects of departmentalization on student achievement. We find that departmentalization has positive effects in English language arts (ELA) and science and mixed evidence of positive effects in math. These positive effects are not driven by teacher productivity improvements: Consistent with prior findings on teacher specialization, teachers are less effective when specializing in math and no more effective in ELA than when teaching self-contained classrooms. Rather, consistent with the theoretical underpinnings for specialization, departmentalized schools tend to assign teachers to their stronger subjects.

When a student enrolls in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) for the first time, the student's parents/guardians complete a Home Language Survey. This survey inquires whether a student's first language is a language other than English, whether a student's primary language is one other than English, and whether a language other than English is used at home. If at least one of the answers is yes, the student is tested to determine his/her English proficiency. Based on the results of this assessment, the student is either classified as an English Language Learner (ELL) or deemed proficient in English. Depending on the English proficiency levels, ELL students are enrolled in specific ESOL courses tailored to meet students' language needs. English proficiency levels for ELL students in M-DCPS range from ESOL 1 (lowest) to ESOL 4 (highest). The English proficiency levels of students are reassessed annually, and the appropriate ESOL placement is determined based on the testing results. ACCESS for ELLs is currently used as the State-mandated English Language Proficiency test. ACCESS for ELLs stands for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners. Once it is ascertained that a student has acquired English proficiency and satisfied the State requirements for exit from the ESOL program, the student exits the program and is re-classified as formerly ELL (ESOL level 5). In this report, students' achievement in the ESOL program is disaggregated by grade and ESOL level. The academic achievement results of former ELL students disaggregated by the number of years since ESOL exit are included in this report. For comparison purposes, the performance of students who have never been classified as ELL is also included in the report.

This brief examines the experiences of California high school seniors from the graduating class of 2023, offering insights into their preparation, plans, and concerns for college prior to enrollment. Drawing on results from a large-scale survey of seniors, the findings reveal important variation in students' secondary school experiences and their plans for college, particularly by race/ethnicity and gender identity. As students' experiences in high school influence concerns about their college futures, these results represent an important marker of what college going may look like for future graduating cohorts and can help policymakers and practitioners better understand the context of students' postsecondary decisions and pathways.

Who ends up in the teacher workforce is greatly influenced by who is admitted into teacher education programs (TEPs). To better understand how the preferences of teacher education faculty might shape admissions of STEM teacher candidates, we surveyed faculty who teach content or methods courses to STEM teacher candidates across five universities. Faculty reported that they most value information collected from individual interviews with applicants and data on the number of STEM courses taken in college and their performance in these courses, and least value data on university admissions tests, high school GPA, and teacher licensure test scores. When we investigate faculty members' revealed preferences through a conjoint analysis, we find that faculty most value applicants who have worked with students from diverse backgrounds and applicants from a marginalized racial or ethnic community, and least value whether they received high grades in math and/or science courses. Finally, we find significant variation in these perceptions across respondents in different faculty roles, who teach different courses, and from different institutions: for example, Arts and Sciences faculty tend to value TEP applicants' performance in college STEM courses relatively more than STEM education faculty, while STEM education faculty tend to value applicants' race and ethnicity relatively more than Arts and Sciences faculty.

Multiple measures assessment (MMA) is an alternative placement system that involves the consideration of alternative measures of students' performance--such as high school grades or GPA--in addition to or in place of standardized test scores to better place students. While the evidence for MMA is strong, placement reform has yet to spread to many colleges and states. Moreover, despite growing support for MMA, many colleges may not be implementing the most promising MMA systems, and some may shift back to standardized testing in the post-pandemic environment. CAPR has sought to assist colleges and states nationwide with the adoption and implementation of MMA practices that place more students--and allow more students to be successful--in college-level courses. As part of these efforts, CAPR worked with colleges in Arkansas and Texas to adopt and expand MMA. The findings in this report are derived from interviews with personnel from 12 two- and four-year public colleges in those states that went through considerable effort to improve their placement systems and to make them sustainable on a large scale. The study focused on three questions: What was the design of the MMA system at each college? How were colleges adopting MMA practices and what were key facilitators and hindrances? And what was the average cost of implementation? The authors found that adoption of MMA at each study college required collaboration among institutional leaders, administrators, faculty members, and advisors. The report highlights the roles of key actors in the adoption of MMA and the important role that state context and policies played in implementation. It also describes challenges that colleges had to overcome during implementation, such as obtaining staff buy-in, managing student data, and ensuring sufficient staffing.

Graduates of special education teacher education programs can teach in a range of special education settings, raising the potential that their training can occur in very different settings than where they find their first jobs. We follow 263 completers of Moderate Disabilities programs in Massachusetts from their field placements to their early-career teaching positions and study the characteristics of their field placements and the degree to which these are aligned with their early-career teaching positions. We also assess the degree to which alignment is associated with early-career teacher turnover. We found that many of these teachers student-taught in an inclusive setting but were hired into a self-contained special education setting and vice versa, and teachers who experienced this misalignment were more likely to leave the workforce early in their careers. Teachers who student taught with a supervising practitioner without a special education license were also more likely to leave early. Findings suggest that teachers training to educate students with learning disabilities should student teach in a setting that is aligned with where they are likely to be hired, and with a supervising practitioner who is trained in special education.

It is now well established that the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating and unequal impact on student achievement. Test score declines were disproportionately large for historically marginalized students, exacerbating preexisting achievement gaps and threatening educational and economic inequality. In this paper, we use longitudinal student-level NWEA MAP Growth test data to estimate differences in test score declines for students at different points on the prepandemic test distribution. We also test the extent to which students' schools and districts accounted for these differences in declines. We find significant differences in learning loss by baseline achievement, with lower-achieving student's scores dropping 0.100 SD more in math and 0.113 SD more in reading than higher-achieving students' scores. We additionally show that the school a student attended accounts for about three-quarters of this widening gap in math achievement and about one-third in reading. The findings suggest school and district-level policies may have mattered more for learning loss than individual students' experiences within schools and districts. Such nuanced information regarding the variation in the pandemic's impacts on students is critical for policymakers and practitioners designing targeted academic interventions and for tracking disparities in academic recovery. [Additional funding for this report was provided by Kenneth C. Griffin.]

Correctional education is a prevalent form of rehabilitation programming for prisoners in the United States. There is limited evidence, however, about the labor market returns to credentials received while incarcerated. Using incarceration, educational, and labor market data in Washington State, we study the labor market returns to GEDs and short-term vocational certificates earned in prison. We identify the returns to credentials by a difference-indifferences design that compares changes in earnings and employment for incarcerated persons who earn a credential to those who enroll in a program but fail to complete a GED or certificate. We estimate that GEDs increase post-incarceration earnings by about $450 per quarter and that vocational certificates increase earnings by about $250 per quarter. Degree completers have higher hourly wages, are more likely to be employed, and work more hours following release. For vocational programs, earnings increases are driven by certificates in construction and manufacturing. [The research presented presented in this report uses confidential data from the Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) located within the Washington Office of Financial Management (OFM).]

California's investment in Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) reflects a commitment to providing access to UTK for all 4-year-olds in public schools by the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the implementation of transitional kindergarten (TK) presents challenges for districts in aligning this new grade coherently with existing grade levels and prekindergarten (PK) options within the context of the mixed-delivery model. This model adds complexity to achieving coherence as students transition from PK or TK to the existing district system. This report from PACE identifies four promising practices observed during the 2022-2023 school year to support access and coherence in early childhood education: (1) Coordinate across providers within the mixed-delivery model, aiming to ensure universal access and vertical alignment of PK and TK offerings; (2) Establish clear and aligned expectations for PK-3 standards and instruction across providers and school sites; (3) Monitor PK-3 student learning and progress to guide decision-making; and (4) Develop coherent professional learning that builds capacity for high-quality teaching and learning in the early grades.

In October 2023, the California Department of Education released test scores for all students in Grades 3-8 and 11 for the 2022-23 school year. These results represent an opportunity to analyze whether and to what extent student learning has rebounded after the dramatic declines in scores resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures. Despite marginal improvements from 2021-22, student cohorts in 2022-23 remain very far behind prepandemic levels: in ELA, by 4.4 percentage points, and in math, by 5.1 percentage points. Most concerning is that these scores reveal so starkly the large and growing opportunity gaps between student groups.

Student achievement in California has not rebounded after the precipitous declines of the COVID-19 pandemic, with English language arts (ELA) and math scores remaining well below prepandemic levels. Student attendance has declined dramatically, and trauma and time away from school have led to mental health challenges, delays in social development, and behavioral issues among students. It is in this context that the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) has launched the Intensive Assistance Model (IAM) pilot school-improvement project, which is designed to build new approaches for teacher collaboration and student support. The IAM pilot's goal is to support schools in implementing the Professional Learning Community (PLC) at Work model, which uses an intensive support and coaching process to empower teachers as instructional leaders through developing processes, structures, and culture that support collaborative planning, data analysis, and targeted interventions. The PLC at Work model has led to measurable impacts in student achievement. Realizing the model's potential requires the active engagement of district offices to align resources, remove barriers, and support effective teaching and learning systems.

Large numbers of students entering community colleges are deemed not academically prepared for college-level math. These students have historically been assigned to one or more non-credit-bearing courses for remedial, often called developmental, math instruction before they can take college-level courses. Research has found that most students assigned to traditional developmental math course sequences never complete those sequences or attain a credential. The Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model was created in 2011 to better support the needs of these students. It diversifies developmental and college-level math course content, separating it into distinct pathways that better align with students' career interests. It also streamlines the developmental math sequence so students can move into college-level courses more quickly. This brief highlights the findings from a rigorous long-term follow-up study of an early version of the DCMP model. The study found that the model had a sustained impact on students' successful completion of their first college-level math course of 5.6 percentage points after five years. This impact on college-level math completion did not lead to discernible effects on credential completion, however. Since the launch of this early version of DCMP, the Dana Center has continued to refine and update the model over time and the findings in this study do not reflect the effects of the current version of the DCMP model. The findings do offer some insights that may inform the current implementation of math pathways and other developmental math reforms.

This annual report provides information for the 2022-23 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading language arts and mathematics tests.

This report presents Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examination participation and performance results in Texas public schools for the 2022-23 school year. Data are provided by student characteristics, including race/ethnicity; gender; and economic, at-risk, dyslexia, Emergent bilingual student/English learner, foster care, homeless, immigrant, migrant, and military-connected statuses. Data also are provided by participation in bilingual education or English as a second language, career and technical education, gifted and talented, Section 504, special education, and Title I programs.

In this supplement, the cost to implement and operate the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) program across the participating colleges is presented separated into primary cost categories based on program components describing what portion of spending went to training, teacher time in class, teacher time outside of class, advisement, technology, curriculum materials, and general administration. These costs are shown in Supplement Table 1 for the start-up phase. In addition to costs incurred by the college, costs incurred by the Dana Center are quantified in Supplement Table 2. The ongoing cost of the intervention to colleges was calculated based on an estimation of DCMP program costs, the cost of the traditional developmental math sequence, and the cost of college credits attempted. These resources include direct instructional costs, as well as the usual advising services, administration, and other student services. The ongoing costs for the operation of the program during one academic year are presented in Supplement Table 3.

Career Technical Education (CTE)--a structured series of courses that provides high school students technical and vocational skills, paving the way to postsecondary education and careers--is key to aligning secondary education with both labor market needs and college opportunities. CTE provides high school students with the chance to engage in practical learning experiences, boosting engagement and expanding students' exposure to and preparation for a variety of careers. CTE participation is linked to increased high school graduation rates, greater likelihood of enrollment in two-year colleges, and higher earnings. With the promise of improved student outcomes, California has invested substantially in CTE over the last ten years. While CTE is generally linked to better educational and earnings outcomes, these outcomes vary across student subgroups and industry sectors. Within each industry sector, there are a number of pathways--a sequence of two or three courses with a final capstone course--that a student may choose to complete. Participation in specific CTE pathways is a function of many factors beyond student choice, including but not limited to course availability and scheduling within a high school or at an alternative school site, distance from the student's high school to the CTE program, and partnerships between high schools and local businesses. As such, pathways are not equally available to students across schools. This extended infographic provides an updated look at CTE pathway completion among California public high school graduates and how completion patterns vary by student race/ethnicity, gender, and CTE industry sector.

At community colleges and open-enrollment universities, most first-year students take placement exams in English and mathematics to determine whether they are ready for college-level courses. But large-scale studies have indicated that these test scores misplace substantial numbers of students--in other words, for many students, the test score does not accurately reflect their ability to succeed in college-level courses. This fact means that many students are taking these courses when they do not need them, using up valuable time and money. To improve placement accuracy, hundreds of colleges across the country have begun implementing a strategy called multiple measures assessment (MMA), a placement approach that uses alternative indicators including high school grade point average instead of or in addition to a single test score to improve placement accuracy. Both corequisite remediation and MMA have been shown to get more students into college-level courses quickly and to help more students pass those courses. This brief summarizes findings from two surveys that show both corequisite and MMA practices are on the rise nationally, making it even more important to understand how best to implement these two practices together. This brief also introduces a study that will provide rigorous evidence related to that question.

Following up on a previous impact and cost study of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model, which used an individual-level randomized controlled trial, this study assesses the costs and cost-effectiveness of the program on longer-term college progress and college attainment. The version of DCMP included in this study diversified the developmental and college-level math course content, separating the content into distinct pathways that better aligned with students' career interests. It also streamlined the developmental math sequence into a one-semester developmental course for all students, regardless of placement level, and implemented an evidence-based curricula and pedagogy to engage students in active problem solving pertinent to real-life situations. The study, which included 1,411 students across four Texas community colleges and ten campuses, found that DCMP saves students money and may be cost-effective when used as part of a larger strategy to improve student success.

There is widespread speculation (e.g., Johnson, 2021; Klinger et al., 2022; Mathews, 2022; Walker, 2021) and some evidence (e.g., Sanchez & Moore, 2022, Sanchez, 2023) that grading standards have changed over the course of the pandemic, making higher grades relatively easier to achieve and less reflective of objective measures of learning. It is possible--even likely--that shifting grading standards give parents, guardians, and students a confusing or inaccurate picture of what students know and can do, especially considering pandemic- related learning losses (Dorn et al., 2021; Goldhaber et al., 2023; Kuhfeld et al., 2022). Despite considerable theoretical work about grading standards and some evidence of changes in grading over the pandemic, there is limited research on the extent to which eased grading standards continued post-pandemic, as teachers and students returned to normal schooling. In this research brief, researchers used administrative data on student grades from Washington state to assess whether grading standards have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Following up on an individual-level randomized controlled trial of a Dana Center Math Pathways (DCMP) model, this study assessed longer-term impacts on students' math completion, academic progress, and academic attainment. The version of the DCMP that was assessed in this study diversified the developmental and college-level math course content that students take, separating it into distinct pathways that better aligned with their career interests. It also streamlined developmental math sequences into a one-semester developmental course for all students, regardless of placement level, and implemented evidence-based curricula and pedagogy to engage students in active problem solving that was pertinent to real-life situations. The study, which followed 1,411 students from four Texas community colleges and ten campuses, found that, in the five years after random assignment, program group students were consistently more likely to successfully complete their first college-level math courses than control group students. The study did not find impacts after five years on the number of overall college credits that students accrued or on the likelihood that students attained a credential or transferred to a four-year college.

In fall 2016, CAPR began a randomized controlled trial of multiple measures assessment (MMA) in community colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) to learn whether MMA yields placement determinations that lead to better student outcomes than a system based on test scores alone. In 2020, a report was released on students' outcomes after three terms. CAPR then launched a follow-up study to estimate outcomes for a longer time period. In this follow-up study, student outcomes, including college-level math and English enrollment and completion and college-level credit attainment, were tracked for at least nine terms from the time of testing, through spring 2021. The findings were disaggregated by race/ethnicity, Pell recipient status, and gender subgroups; a cost analysis of MMA was also conducted. This brief focuses on "bump-zone" findings--those for the subset of students whose placements changed (or would have changed) under MMA. The study finds that--four and a half years after random assignment--students who were "bumped up" into college-level math and English courses through MMA were much more likely to have enrolled in and completed a college-level course (with a grade of C or higher) than similar business-as-usual group students. The benefits of MMA were likely driven primarily by increased access to college-level courses rather than by any improved accuracy from using MMA. Regardless of subject area, program group students who were bumped up through MMA had better outcomes than similar students in the business-as-usual group, and program group students who were bumped down through MMA had worse outcomes than similar business-as-usual group students. It is important to recognize that MMA can be designed in a way that promotes more access and that prevents students from receiving a lower placement. [For the accompanying working paper, see ED632523.]

Multiple measures assessment (MMA) has gained considerable momentum over the past decade as an alternative to traditional test-based procedures for placing incoming students into developmental or college-level coursework in math and English at broad-access colleges. Compared to standardized tests, which measure student performance at a single point in time, MMA (which often emphasizes high school GPA as a measure) provides a more holistic picture of students' academic preparation. Despite positive impacts on student outcomes that have been found by recent research on MMA, questions remain about whether the positive effects of MMA are sustained over time. This study--a follow-up to prior research using the same sample of students--employs a randomized controlled trial to investigate whether algorithmic MMA placement used at seven State University of New York (SUNY) community colleges led to better student outcomes, for up to four and a half years after randomization, than a system based on test scores alone. Nearly 13,000 incoming students who arrived at the seven colleges in fall 2016, spring 2017, and fall 2017 took placement tests and were randomly assigned to be placed using either the status quo method (business-as-usual group) or the alternative, algorithmic MMA method (program group). Using this sample, we estimate the overall treatment effects on placement into, enrollment in, and completion of college-level math and English as well as effects on other outcomes. We conduct similar analyses on race/ethnicity, Pell recipient status, and gender subgroups. We also descriptively examine the proportion of program group students who were bumped up (i.e., their placement changed from a developmental course placement to a college-level course placement) and bumped down (i.e., their placement changed from a college-level course placement to a developmental course placement) by the MMA algorithm, and we perform a cost-effectiveness analysis. We find that the MMA method used at the colleges improved access to and success in college-level courses and that lower cut scores in English rather than math are associated with larger and longer lasting impacts on completion of college-level coursework. While MMA improved outcomes among student subgroups, it had little to no impact on gaps in outcomes between subgroups. We also find that bumped-up students had substantially better outcomes in both math and English, while bumped-down students had substantially worse outcomes. Our results suggest that increased access to college-level courses is the driving factor in the positive outcomes experienced by program group students and that placement into standalone developmental courses can have detrimental effects on student outcomes. In the discussion of the study's results, we make recommendations for adopting MMA at colleges. Implemented together with other initiatives to support students, MMA can be a first step on the path to success for incoming students. [For the accompanying research brief, see ED632528.]

Corequisite remediation involves placing students who have been designated as underprepared directly into college-level courses with concurrent supports--such as in-class tutoring, online learning labs, or a supplemental class--rather than making them take non-credit-bearing developmental courses first. Despite the growing number of studies on corequisite remediation, there are still questions about which practices can address the needs of and advance equity for diverse groups of students, particularly students who struggle with basic math or English skills. CAPR researchers partnered with the Charles A. Dana Center to study and offer formative feedback about the implementation of corequisite course models at four colleges participating in the Corequisite Research Design Collaborative, the Dana Center's initiative for implementing equity-minded, holistic corequisite course models. CAPR researchers partnered with the Charles A. Dana Center to study and offer formative feedback about the implementation of corequisite course models at four colleges participating in the Corequisite Research Design Collaborative, the Dana Center's initiative for implementing equity-minded, holistic corequisite course models. This research brief and the supplement highlight the findings on the design and implementation of corequisite courses at the four colleges, as well as findings from a survey administered to students who were enrolled in these courses in fall 2021 and spring 2022. The researchers found that the implementation of corequisite support courses helped students understand course content and increased their engagement with their coursework. In general, students appeared more comfortable engaging in support courses than in the paired college-level courses. This suggests that support courses can play an important role in improving student engagement by providing an additional space for students to interact with the course content, their peers, and faculty. [This report was written with Ellen Wasserman. For the supplement, see ED631329.]

This study investigates racial disparities in school closures both within California and nationally. Findings highlight an alarming pattern: Schools enrolling higher proportions of Black students are at significantly increased risk of closure relative to those enrolling fewer Black students, a pattern that is more pronounced in California than elsewhere in the United States. This study also finds that conventional explanations for school closures--such as declining enrollments, poverty rates, and achievement differences--cannot fully account for why schools enrolling larger shares of Black students have greater odds of closure. These findings underscore that school closures in California and elsewhere reflect racial inequalities that require adequate policymaking to ensure equitable and fair school-closure proceedings

Enrollment in California public schools has been declining and is projected to fall even more steeply during the next decade. Because funding for school districts is largely based on average daily attendance rates, a decline in enrollment results in a loss of funding. To address budget shortfalls and align services with student counts, many districts have consolidated or closed schools, or they are contemplating doing so. Leaders in declining-enrollment districts will need to consider the benefits and costs when seeking to balance their budgets with new enrollment realities. This report makes three recommendations for how local decision makers, including district officials and school board members, should approach school closures: (1) establish and execute an inclusive, transparent process; (2) implement a strategy to provide displaced students and the broader student community with accessible, high-quality educational opportunities; and (3) develop a long-term plan to address factors--such as housing affordability, gentrification, and economic divestment--contributing to the disproportionate closure of schools serving low-income students and students of color. This report aims to provide evidence and suggestions to help state and local education leaders as they confront declining enrollment and urges them to work with other city and county agencies, including housing and economic development authorities, to increase opportunities for low-income families and communities of color so that fewer enrollment-related school closures are necessary.

Declining student enrollment is leading to a loss of revenue in many California school districts. To address ongoing budget shortfalls, many districts have consolidated or shuttered schools, and others are contemplating doing so. A new report and working paper, summarized in this brief, explore the racial dimensions of school closures and how to address them. The authors find that closures are far more common for schools that serve higher proportions of Black students. Even after controlling for a range of factors, the odds of school closure increase by nearly 25 percent for every 10-percentage-point increase in the share of Black students. This research situates this and other disparities within the U.S. history of segregation, neighborhood disinvestment, and gentrification, and provides evidence and suggestions to help education leaders center equity as they confront declining enrollment-related school closures.