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Teaching deeper learning involves cultivating the critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills that students need to be successful in their college, career, and civic life. It also involves encouraging students to be active participants in their learning. Public schools across the United States often work to help students develop these skills. This report focuses on several elements of students' deeper learning based on fall 2023 and spring 2024 surveys administered to American School District Panel member district leaders. It summarizes how district leaders believe middle and high schoolers' critical thinking skills are best developed in their schools, whether students' input about teaching and learning is collected in these schools, district leaders' examples of their schools' most effective forms of project-based learning, and districts' theories of action for teaching and learning.

In spring 2024, the authors surveyed 156 American School District Panel member districts about principal pipeline activities across seven domains -- leader standards, principal preparation, selective hiring and placement, on-the-job support and evaluation, principal supervision, leader tracking systems, and systems of support -- to estimate the share of U.S. public school districts engaged in such activities. Researchers also examined those activities by district enrollment size to investigate the hypothesis that the infrastructure to support the principal pipeline is mostly confined to large districts. This report is intended to support administrators of principal preparation programs, school district leaders, state department of education staff who oversee principal certification and leadership development, and education researchers who study school leadership.

A large body of evidence indicates that well-implemented social and emotional learning (SEL) programs improve academic, social, and emotional outcomes for students and educators. Education policy has the potential to influence the high-quality implementation of SEL, from the school district, to the school, to the classroom. Before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, U.S. states enacted supportive policies and conditions to promote SEL in schools. However, curricula that foster the development of social and emotional competences have been one of many controversies about the instructional content and instructional practices schools should use to teach students. Thus, legislators in nine states have proposed bills to prohibit or inhibit SEL instruction in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools. In this report, the authors investigate whether states' SEL policies (for and against) are associated with the implementation of SEL by K-12 schools, as reported by teachers and principals. In their approach, the authors merge the survey data they collected from educators with the results of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning's (CASEL's) nationwide scan of each state's and the District of Columbia's SEL-relevant policies and conditions. The authors also study whether SEL implementation is correlated with two teacher-reported indicators of positive student experience: supportive climate and student interest in learning. The authors' findings show whether state policymakers' SEL-related policies (including legislation and guidance) connect to schools' on-the-ground decisions and implementation, as reported by principals and teachers.

This is the latest report in the State of the Superintendent series, an annual report intended to provide a reliable, recurring snapshot of the U.S. public school superintendency. Since the American School District Panel began in fall 2020, researchers have periodically surveyed superintendents about their job, focusing on job-related stressors, job satisfaction, and intentions to remain in the profession. New for this year was a question about which activities take up the largest share of superintendents' time. The survey revealed a divide between superintendents of small districts (those with fewer than 3,000 students) and large districts (those serving 10,000 or more students). For example, in spring 2024, district budgets topped small-district superintendents' list of stressors, but the intrusion of political issues and opinions into schooling was the most common stressor among large-district superintendents. Meanwhile, superintendents of large districts stated that their most time-consuming activities were external and internal communications, whereas those in small districts spent more time on budgets and on school facility maintenance and operations. The differences are so large as to suggest that the very job of the superintendent--and, therefore, likely the skills needed most to succeed in the job--is substantially different in large (urban) versus small (mostly rural) districts.

In the year following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic-related school closures in March 2020, educators began to sound the alarm about increasing chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing at least 10 percent of school days (i.e., 18 days in a typical 180-day school year) for any reason, whether excused or unexcused. Data suggest that chronic absenteeism skyrocketed in the aftermath of pandemic-induced school closures. But despite rates improving modestly in the 2022-2023 school year, persistently high chronic absenteeism rates have left educators and policymakers across the United States wondering what they can do to get students back in school. To get the latest information on the ongoing problem of chronic absenteeism, the authors conducted a survey of school districts and interviewed leaders of districts who are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The findings estimate the proportion of districts with elevated levels of chronic absenteeism during the most recent school year (2023-2024), provide national prevalence estimates of the approaches that districts are employing to reduce absenteeism, and highlight perspectives from district leaders about why a greater share of children are missing school now than in the past. This report is intended for school district leaders, organizations focused on school attendance, and state policymakers.

The American School District Panel (ASDP) is a nationally representative set of more than 1,000 school district leaders who agree to take surveys over time. RAND recruits ASDP members using probabilistic sampling methods, which allow researchers to weight survey results to generalize to the national population of school districts and charter management organizations. This report provides technical information about the spring 2024 ASDP survey of district leaders. The authors describe the survey administration and weighting processes they used to produce nationally representative estimates.

In spring 2024, the authors surveyed 190 American School District Panel member districts about what interventions (e.g., tutoring, additional staff, additional instruction time) they were still using during the 2023-2024 school year to assist with students' learning recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic-related setbacks. Districts were also asked about their expected revenues in future school years and what cuts, if any, they plan to make because of the expiration of federal stimulus funds. This series is intended to provide brief analyses of educator survey results of immediate interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

Summer programming is one of the main ways school districts have sought to help students recover academically from COVID-19 pandemic-related setbacks. Authors use a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of kindergarten through grade 12 public school districts to investigate the prevalence and structure of districts' programming in summer 2023. Authors use these results to describe the prevalence of district-offered summer programming in 2023; examine details about elementary and secondary programs, in terms of their eligibility criteria, length, and academic and nonacademic offerings; discuss how districts approached their summer academic instruction; and look at districts' expectations about funding for summer 2024. Because experiences with summer learning programming can vary by district context, the authors examine differences in districts' survey responses by locale (urban, suburban, rural), poverty status (low poverty, high poverty), student racial/ethnic composition (majority white students, majority students of color), and enrollment size (small, medium, large). This research is part of a series intended to provide brief analyses of educator survey results of immediate interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

The release of such generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools as ChatGPT in 2022 was a major advancement in the field of AI. Two burning questions for kindergarten through grade 12 (K--12) educators are to what extent new generative AI tools will change teaching and whether they will improve learning. The answers to these questions are not yet clear and likely will not be for some time. But to learn firsthand from educators the ways in which AI is beginning to affect teaching and learning in K-12 public schools, the authors surveyed and interviewed educators across the United States. Specifically, the authors surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,020 teachers using RAND's American Teacher Panel in fall 2023. They also surveyed a nationally representative sample of 231 districts in fall 2023 and interviewed 11 leaders from these districts in December 2023 and January 2024. The districts the authors surveyed and the leaders they interviewed are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The authors combine the perspectives of K-12 teachers and district leaders in this report to construct the most comprehensive picture to date of how educators are engaging with AI products and tools for teaching. Teachers reported how they actually use AI tools in their practices, and district leaders reported whether and how they are providing policies, guidance, and training on the use of AI tools.

The American School District Panel (ASDP) is the newest addition to RAND's American Educator Panels (AEP) and was designed to survey district leaders two times each school year. RAND recruits ASDP members using probabilistic sampling methods, which allow researchers to weight survey results to generalize to the national population of school districts. This report provides technical information about the fall 2023 ASDP survey of district leaders. The authors describe the survey administration and weighting processes that they used to produce nationally representative estimates.

School principals are critical to students' academic achievement, second only to teachers. They are the primary agents of change in their schools, fostering supportive learning environments that enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness. Moreover, they often design and oversee the initiatives and hiring to sustain the positive changes that they help bring about. There is a growing body of knowledge focused on the professional development of principals to help them be more effective in their key functions, such as coaching teachers and developing teachers' leadership skills. But there are few proven models for effective professional development of principals that improves student achievement. Because of this, developers, providers, and funders of such programs are short on evidence for how to align principals' professional learning and support with practices proven to help students achieve. To help address this gap, the United States Department of Education awarded two grants -- an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant awarded in 2014 and a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant awarded in 2015 -- for the National Institute for School Leadership (NISL) to deliver its Executive Development Program (EDP) to approximately 900 school principals across five U.S. states. In addition to providing the EDP, NISL provided one-on-one in-person coaching. The RAND Corporation was the independent evaluator for both grants. RAND's two evaluations, the largest of their kind to date, resulted in several findings that can inform principal training and coaching programs going forward.

Since its launch in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the American School District Panel (ASDP) has been used to monitor timely topics in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) public education. Over time, ASDP surveys have coalesced around four key challenges that U.S. public school districts face today: school staffing, budgeting, the politicization of schooling, and academic recovery efforts. In this Data Note, authors provide a brief update on these four challenges using data from the fall 2023 ASDP survey. The survey included seven questions on these topics, and the findings of each question are briefly discussed.