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Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) are colleges and universities across the United States and U.S. Territories enrolling significant percentages of racially minoritized undergraduate students or created with the explicit purpose of serving specific populations of racially minoritized students under various programs created by U.S. Congress (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). About one in five Title IV-eligible postsecondary institutions is eligible for MSI funding (Nguyen, Ramirez, & Laderman, 2023). All MSIs must be accredited, degree-granting public or private non-proprietary (not-for-profit) colleges and universities. While MSIs are federal institutional-level designations codified in the Higher Education Act of 1965, states have a stake in this matter. The following analysis is an opportunity to highlight MSIs, given their outsized roles in educating racially minoritized and other minoritized students. Because most studies have focused on discussing MSIs solely at the institutional or national levels, this piece explores MSIs at the regional and state/territory levels. Using available information from the MSI Data Project (2017-2021), this piece contributes to our knowledge of MSIs by reporting on MSIs across U.S. Census divisions and states/territories. Moreover, different from how existing literature describes seven MSI designations, following Nguyen, Ramirez, & Laderman (2023), this piece reports on 11 MSI designations. Namely, this offers more precision around which designations an institution may be eligible for. This descriptive analysis is appropriate for laying the landscape of public MSIs (Loeb et al., 2017).

Although global access to schooling has increased over the last several decades, Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which champions inclusive, equitable, quality education, is far from being achieved. Experts predict that if the global community continues to operate education systems in the same way, by 2030, only one in six countries will reach the universal secondary school completion targets, and approximately 300 million students in school will continue to lack basic numeracy and literacy skills. The 2022 United Nations Transforming Education Summit emphasized the urgent need for a complete overhaul of education systems to meet SDG 4 targets. One significant outcome of the summit was a call to improve student learning by transforming teacher classroom practice. This paper is the first in a series of three working papers meant to serve as references and conversation starters for policymakers and researchers as they navigate pedagogical reform for education system transformation in their local contexts. This paper explores various definitions of pedagogies, the lack of consensus on what pedagogy means in practice, and the effects of Invisible Pedagogical Mindsets on pedagogical approaches.

This research uses the implementation of a school suspension ban in Maryland to test whether a top-down state-initiated ban on suspensions in early primary grades can influence school behavior regarding school discipline. Beginning in the fall of 2017, the State of Maryland banned the use of out-of-school suspensions for grades PK-2, unless a student posed an "imminent threat" to staff or students. This research investigates (1) what was the effect of the ban on discipline outcomes for students in both treated grades and upper elementary grades not subject to the ban? (2) did schools bypass the ban by coding more events as threatening or increasing the use of in-school suspensions? and (3) were there differential effects for students in groups that are historically suspended more often? Using a comparative interrupted time series strategy, we find that the ban is associated with a substantial reduction in, but not a total elimination of, out-of-school suspensions for targeted grades without substitution of in-school suspensions. Disproportionalities by race and other characteristics remain after the ban. Grades not subject to the ban experienced few effects, suggesting the ban did not trigger a schoolwide response that reduced exclusionary discipline.

Common denominator communications examines dialogic pedagogy together with modes of communications rooted in "hierological", "equity", "inclusive", and "peer" driven foundations. It examines limits and utility in applying these foundations in the classroom. The relationship between these modes and how it may assist in the development of an effective "teaching lens" that confers the common denominator strategy to bring the majority of students to view the curriculum in the same context and understanding regardless of halo considerations associated with both "equity' and "inclusive" classroom schemes. It further examines how individual foundation paradigms align for goal driven objectives and drift back towards foundation norms after the consensus achieves its desired learning goals.

The Equity Playbook Initiative Implementation in Kentucky underwent an efficacy study conducted by LXD Research during the 2022-2023 school year. The study aimed to assess the initiative's impact on student academic achievement and school climate. A total of 55 public schools participating in the Equity Playbook Initiative were compared with 240 statistically similar non-participating schools. The demographic breakdown of the sample included 65% economically disadvantaged students, with a significant representation of 30% African American students and 35% non-white students. The findings indicated that Equity Playbook schools significantly improved key academic outcomes, particularly among economically disadvantaged students. Notably, students attending Equity Playbook schools, especially those with a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, showed significant improvement in testing on grade level in Science and Math compared to their counterparts in non-participating schools. Additionally, the study revealed a reduction in the Kentucky Summative Assessment (KSA) achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students among participating schools. Furthermore, the completion rates of advanced courses for African American and non-white students in Equity Playbook schools showed marked improvement compared to the schools that did not participate in the initiative. Qualitative interviews with state, district, and school-level educators and staff also provided positive feedback regarding the effects of the Equity Playbook Initiative. The findings suggest that the Equity Playbook Initiative holds promise in promoting student academic achievement and enhancing school climate. This study encourages further evaluation and broader adoption of the Equity Playbook Initiative in various districts and schools across Kentucky to leverage its potential benefits. [This report was prepared for engage2learn by LXD Research.]

This study explores the underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students in California's community college Dual Enrollment (DE) programs. The study investigates how DE staff describe an understanding and commitment towards equity for Black and Latinx students in DE programs and how staff engage in equitably aimed praxis to serve Black and Latinx students through practices and collaborations between feeder high schools. Using a Critical Policy Analysis lens, the research highlights how Black and Latinx students are prioritized through equitable practices focused in advising and outreach. However, not all DE staff prioritize Black and Latinx through practices. Despite this, scant instances reveal that collaborative efforts between DE programs, high schools, and districts improve DE services and outcomes, though majority of K-12 partners are absent from collaborative efforts led by DE programs. The study emphasizes the need for increased collaboration between K-12 partners and integrating equitable approaches to DE outreach and advising to engage and recruit Black and Latinx students. This research advances the conversation of equity in DE programs and offers insights for addressing participation gaps among Black and Latinx students.

In this paper we present the Advancing Racial Equity in Community College Model which maps out the organizational conditions shaping institutional transformation. Focused on two dimensions, the level of "organizational support" and "shared responsibility" to enact equity, we describe four quadrants with distinct organizational conditions that shape how equity advocates design, build, and sustain equity efforts. With well-documented racial inequities and renewed calls for racial justice across higher education, it demands new ways of exploring and understanding how institutional actors leading equity efforts are nested within differing organizational contexts that can enable as well as restrict the enactment and success of racial equity efforts. Our model helps equity advocates gain an "awareness" of known barriers to implementation in higher education, assess the readiness of their campus for racialized change, and take action to build the necessary institutional support and capacity to move the work forward.

While current higher education literature stresses the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusivity, these imperatives have been mainly absent from conversations related to boards of higher education. In this paper, the authors present a historical overview of the demographic landscape of trustee boards from inception to the present. Using critical literacy as a methodology, the authors problematize the lack of discourses regarding Board's diversity. The authors juxtapose the longstanding homogeneity of boards with the increasing heterogeneity of higher education students and argue that systemic forms of racism have denied the opportunity to diversify those in charge of making decisions in higher education. Additionally, using the case of California, the authors problematize how diversity gaps in board composition manifest even within one of the most diverse and liberal states in the country. Ultimately, the authors make a case for diversifying the board of trustees as an instrumental step to align with the national push for enhanced diversity and equity in higher education.

In recent years, American universities have implemented many innovative strategies to enhance the academic success of students, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. Yet first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) college students continue to encounter barriers to success because they do not have authentic access to digital technology needed to graduate and be career-ready in our rapidly changing economy. This paper analyzes the current state of digital inequity among FLI students at Stanford University. It also reviews existing programs to address digital inequity at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), the University of Michigan and Bowdoin College and provides guidance on developing a device program. Finally, the paper recommends strategies to better understand digital inequity and to address it in a sustainable way.

Research has shown that access to technology industry pathways and support for recruitment, retention, and advancement through technology careers remain inequitable for Black talent due to various systemic barriers. To help address this issue, Digital Promise conducted research that centers the voices and lived experiences of Black workers and learners seeking to enter and advance in the technology industry with the purpose of building awareness to the: (1) challenges and barriers they face navigating the U.S. technology learning and working ecosystem; (2) factors such as supports and services that have facilitated their technology career pathway entry, retention, and advancement; and (3) collaboratively designed recommendations for needed supports that they have identified that can better promote successful navigation and persistence within technology career pathways. This report further highlights actionable steps that various technology industry contributors can take to dismantle systemic barriers within the technology learning and workforce ecosystem and increase access to non-four-year-degree pathways to tech careers. [Funding for this project is provided by Walmart through the Walmart.org Center for Racial Equity.]

The Campaign for College Opportunity has always been a champion of ensuring equal and equitable treatment of all students in higher education. The Campaign for College Opportunity recognizes the value and necessity of understanding the experience of diverse learners by disaggregating data to explore trends, opportunities, and challenges. More importantly, it seeks to bring attention to the expertise, assets, and strengths of Americans from all backgrounds, while ensuring that solutions are targeted to support these same students. This is the first of four briefs within the Campaign for College Opportunity's national initiative that highlight specific practices to support American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN), Latinx, Black, Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students more equitably. This brief is tailored and informed by experts, best practices, and an authentic commitment to ensure that all American Indian and Alaska Native students can go to college and succeed without sacrificing or leaving their cultural assets behind. [Additional funding for this series of briefs was provided by Eileen and Harold Brown.]

State summative assessments play an important role in measuring student learning and guiding educational improvement efforts, despite their limitations. But there is growing momentum in individual states and nationally to rethink these assessments with an eye toward reducing time spent on testing and increasing the tests' instructional relevance. "Multiple Choices: Weighing Updates to State Summative Assessments" helps policymakers and advocates understand what they may gain and what they may lose when considering potential shifts in assessments. The report examines several of the most common proposed changes -- including reducing test length, matrix sampling, student sampling, grade-band testing, performance assessment, and through-year assessment -- and summarizes the potential gains, losses, and unknowns of each. The report also offers recommendations for state policymakers, federal policymakers, and advocates working to ensure that summative assessments better address the needs of educators, families, and students.

The Wallace Foundation commissioned Research for Action and McClanahan Associates to study how out-of-school time intermediaries (OSTIs) responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the role they could play in supporting communities moving forward. Citywide out-of-school time (OST) systems encompass a wide variety of afterschool and summer programs and associated provider organizations, youth participants, and their families. These systems were stretched during the COVID-19 pandemic and the national racial reckoning to respond to community needs in new and more equitable ways. Also impacted were OSTIs that manage OST systems within individual cities. OSTIs operate through various governance structures and perform a range of coordination functions intended to ensure quality, access, and equity in OST systems so that all youth have access to the unique out-of-school resources and opportunities they need to thrive.

"Free college" (sometimes called Promise) programs are common in U.S. higher education. Reviewing 88 studies of 25 state and local programs, I provide a nuanced picture of the mechanisms through which these programs may work and their likely effects on students, communities, and colleges. Some commonly-claimed mechanisms for these effects--e.g., improving secondary school environments or impacting residential decisions--lack empirical support or are implausible for most existing programs. Programs are consistently found to shift college-bound students to colleges where they can use more scholarship dollars, increase enrollment at eligible colleges, and (for generous local programs only) increase community school district enrollment. Less consistently, programs boost college participation and thereby degree attainment, but evidence for direct effects on college performance, persistence or completion net of enrollment is weak. There is insufficient or inconsistent evidence for program effects on secondary school performance and graduation, post-college income and debt, community population or property values, and inequality reduction according to gender, race, or socioeconomic status.

Research and development work in artificial intelligence in education (AIED) is wide ranging and rapidly growing to support all areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning. At the risk of hyperbole, this is potentially the most fundamentally game-changing technology for education to emerge since the internet. Building from decades of work on AI and AI-based learning and teaching technologies, the recent advances in AIED are pushing us to reimagine what is possible for STEM teaching and learning. AIED research initiatives are being speedily funded, and AIED advances are quickly becoming integrated into STEM education. It is transforming how teachers teach and how students learn. It is also transforming how education developers and researchers conduct their expansive work. There is excitement about the promise of AIED as well as growing concern that the breakthroughs in AIED are impacting everyday education practice in ways that may perpetuate long-standing biases and diminish the potential for positive outcomes. This brief is the first in a three-part series on AIED related to STEM research, teaching, and learning. The topics address ethical approaches to AI in STEM education research, AI for STEM teaching, and AI for STEM learning. This series is sponsored by the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), a National Science Foundation-funded network for STEM education researchers endeavoring to improve STEM teaching and learning through research, development, and various information-sharing and community-building mechanisms. Researchers in the CADRE network are part of a portfolio of projects funded through NSF's Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) program. The DRK-12 portfolio is wide-ranging, with a multitude of projects that focus on applied research and development to generate innovative research-informed and field-tested tools, products, and approaches that are intended to enhance STEM teaching and learning. Over the past several years, the portfolio has grown to include an increasing number of projects that leverage AIED to achieve their goals related to teaching or learning. It is expected to continue to grow. This series has been inspired by the question, "What are the essential considerations for researchers and developers who are designing, studying, and using AI in K-12 STEM?" Our hope is that the opportunities and challenges discussed in this series will generate reflection and rich discussion for the better and support the transformative use of AI to achieve positive and wide-reaching impact for all learners. In this first brief, "Toward Ethical and Just AI in Education Research," the authors are concerned with the ethical reasoning and decisions made in the development, study, and use of AIED technologies. Recognizing that AIED technologies reflect both the intended and unintended biases of the designers and the wider society, they advocate for the adoption of policies and practices that prioritize ethics, equity, and justice in research and development initiatives using AIED technologies in K-12 education. In an effort to provide guidance to researchers and developers, they lay the groundwork for responsible AI research and its implementation in educational settings. This foundation draws in part from the ethics rules for research with human subjects that have guided researchers for decades, but goes beyond this to frame a more all-encompassing stance rooted in justice and equity. The authors illustrate how ethical AI research can be strengthened by building from well-established ethical principles used in research and society at large. Taking into account these principles, they propose an ethical AIED framework and a set of tools that they have found to be supportive of continuous reflection, communication, and improvement toward inclusive and equitable AIED research and development. Their guidance is in the service of ensuring that the good intentions of researchers and developers will lead to positive design decisions and actions that create inclusive AIED technology products and systems. This is a valuable contribution that encourages a shift in focus to bring ethics, justice, and the values of communities of teachers, students, and families to the forefront of research and development practice.

Appropriately identifying children with disabilities--in ways that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate--is critical for ensuring that learners receive the supports they need to meet early milestones and succeed in school. In turn, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) charges states and school districts with: (1) finding all children, birth through age 21, suspected of having a disability; (2) evaluating them to determine if they are eligible for IDEA services; and (3) measuring and addressing racial or ethnic disparities in who is identified. Since IDEA's reauthorization in 2004, there is greater access to data and more sophisticated approaches to screen for and detect certain disabilities, an increasingly diverse child population, and new regulations on how to measure disparities in identification. This report examines how state and district practices during the 2019-2020 school year aligned with IDEA's goals of appropriate identification.

Several federal laws require schools to provide services and accommodations to students with disabilities and to protect them from discrimination. The application of these laws may change depending on students' circumstances. At the P-12 level, three main federal laws protect the rights of students with disabilities: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For students receiving special education under the IDEA or accommodations and services under Section 504 or the ADA, transitioning from the P-12 public education system to an institution of higher education (IHE) may affect how a school assesses their disabilities, their eligibility for accommodations or services, and the services and accommodations available to them. Students may also experience different treatment in the same educational context depending on which laws apply to them. This report examines the impact of these laws on students with disabilities in certain key respects: (1) how the laws define disability; (2) how the laws require schools to determine eligibility for services and protections; (3) how the laws ensure students with disabilities receive the accommodations and services they need; (4) the scope of legal protection guaranteed to students with disabilities; (5) how families enforce their rights; and (6) the available remedies.

More than 90% of IDEA funding is allocated to Part B, Grants to States (Section 611), which contains funding and policy provisions related to special education for children ages 3 to 21. The influence of federal Part B, Grants to States funding on state and local funding decisions is twofold: 1) it links eligibility for IDEA grants to compliance with programmatic and administrative requirements, and 2) it mandates that states and districts maintain consistent levels of state and local funding for special education annually. This brief details its eligibility requirements, allocation methods, and funding trends.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitles students with disabilities to a free appropriate public education. Students with disabilities often require additional support to enable them to achieve academic and functional goals relative to their nondisabled peers. These legally protected supports and services all add up to a need for additional school funding to support the education of children with disabilities. This brief examines how states and the federal government allocate funding to support the educational needs of students with disabilities and identifies questions that state advocates and policymakers can pose to better understand and improve their state's system for funding special education services.

IDEA is the cornerstone federal law that safeguards and promotes the educational rights of children with disabilities. It was enacted in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which established a right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities for the first time. Before the EHA, there were gradual changes in laws regarding the treatment and support of individuals with disabilities, driven by legal actions and advocacy from disability rights groups. Over time, these efforts led to the more comprehensive approach seen in the EHA. Since its inception, IDEA has been reauthorized four times, including in 1990 when it acquired its current name. IDEA influences state and local funding decisions both by tying eligibility for IDEA grants -- which represent a substantial share of total funding for special education from all sources -- to meeting specific programmatic and administrative requirements and by requiring states and public school systems to sustain at least the same levels of state and local funding for special education year over year. This brief provides an overview of the purposes of IDEA and the four categories of federally funded programs governed by the law.

For decades, assessing income has served as the tried-and-true method for creating financial aid packages--scholarships, grants, and loans--for the nation's college students. Each year, students and families living with low and moderate incomes submit income documentation to colleges, states, and the federal government in hopes of qualifying for financial aid to defray college costs. But what if a student's wealth status revealed more about their ability to cover college costs than their income did? Income is an important measure, but it provides only a snapshot of the full resources available to students and their families. Wealth, too, impacts a student's access and ability to pay for college as well as their chances of graduating and turning career aspirations into a well-paying job and fulfilling life. Examining income alone masks deep and persistent inequities in wealth by race or ethnicity. This gap, which is rooted in generations of discrimination and systemic barriers to opportunity, affects the college dreams of countless people, particularly those from historically marginalized communities. Limitations in available data mean researchers and policymakers know relatively little about how wealth impacts higher education, with far more attention focused on understanding and addressing the effects of income. This paper seeks to address that missing piece by exploring the impact of wealth on students' experiences in higher education and how these experiences, in turn, influence wealth-building.

Among the many inequalities associated with racial segregation in schools, one notable disparity is the unequal access to experienced teachers. Schools with high proportions of Black or Latinx students have a disproportionate share of inexperienced teachers, both throughout the nation and in California specifically (Clotfelter, Ladd, & Clifton, 2023; Darling-Hammond, 2004; Goldhaber, Lavery, & Theobald, 2015; Knight, 2019; Learning Policy Institute, 2023; Shields et al., 1999). State-level policies and analyses in California have addressed the racial distribution of teacher experience, including the State's release of three annual reports in 2015, 2016, and 2017 titled, "California State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators." This study analyzes seven years of the most recent publicly available data from California's public schools, focusing on the relationship between student race and teacher experience. The authors categorized teacher experience in various ways: identifying teachers as "novices" based on 1, 2, or 3 years of teaching experience, and calculating the average and median years of experience at each school. Segregation was assessed from multiple angles by grouping schools based on their racial composition in six different ways, including categories such as "majority non-white" and "90% or more underrepresented minorities" that measure varying degrees of racial concentration. It also presents a regression model to investigate whether the relationship between teacher experience and racial composition holds when taking into account other variables, such as poverty status. The multiple ways of assessing the relationship all point to a discouraging conclusion: California continues to maintain a system of segregated schools that are separate and unequal in terms of teacher experience. The remainder of this report details and provides context for these findings. It concludes with a discussion of several possible ways to address the inequitable distribution of teacher experience in California.

May 17, 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated schools were "inherently unequal." At the time, North Carolina was one of 17 states that enforced de jure segregation, that is, segregation by law. The state of North Carolina and the school districts within the state have played prominent roles in our nation's history of school desegregation. North Carolina's public school enrollment is increasingly multiracial, and the expansion of school choice means that a growing share of students attends charters and private schools, both of which tend to be more segregated than traditional public schools. On the cusp of this important anniversary, the authors assess where North Carolina schools are now in terms of school desegregation, as segregated schools are systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities and outcomes, while desegregated schools are associated with numerous short-term, long-term, academic, and nonacademic outcomes for individuals and society.

All people deserve the opportunity to earn a better living and build a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities through a postsecondary education. But that opportunity is not available equally to all in the United States, and current postsecondary data sets and collection practices at the federal, state, and institutional levels can both lack information on or inadvertently mask disparities in college access and success for different student populations--particularly those from Indigenous communities. This brief focuses on individuals categorized as American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) in federal data sets and highlights the complexities of collecting data about this community, including how AI/AN students are counted and categorized in data collections and how those collections fall short in engaging and representing Indigenous communities. Because of current data collection practices, educators, researchers, and policymakers lack the information needed to challenge the barriers Native students face and to ensure that Indigenous students are well served in higher education. This brief proposes strategies for federal agencies, states, institutions, and researchers to use to improve the collection, reporting, and analysis of AI/AN student data.

In its 2023 decision in "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard," the Supreme Court effectively ended its approval of affirmative action in higher education admissions, holding that practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) were unlawful. The Court concluded that UNC's practices violated the guarantee of equal protection in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which generally prohibits governmental racial discrimination. Additionally, while the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause applies directly only to state-run educational institutions, its nondiscrimination requirements apply equally to private colleges and universities that receive federal funds under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which prohibits recipients of federal dollars from discriminating on the basis of race. In "Students for Fair Admissions," the Court concluded that Harvard's affirmative action program violated this statutory provision for the same reasons that UNC's violated the Constitution. This report describes the evolution of the Supreme Court's voluntary affirmative action jurisprudence and the "Students for Fair Admissions" decision's implications. The report concludes by discussing the role that Title VI plays in ensuring equal protection in higher education, including several avenues for congressional action under the Act.

California has a notable history of investing in educational leaders' professional learning. In 1983, the state launched the California School Leadership Academy (CSLA), which it funded until the academy was discontinued due to statewide budget cuts in 2003. Research showed that CSLA was a source of high-quality professional development. In 2019, the state legislature reinvested in leaders' professional learning when it authorized the 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) to provide high-quality professional learning opportunities that are accessible and free of charge to California's PreK-12 educational leaders, including central office leaders, site leaders, and teacher leaders. The professional learning is delivered through seven regional academies that offer three primary types of learning opportunities: communities of practice (i.e., cohorts of leaders in similar roles collaboratively working on problems of practice), localized professional learning (i.e., learning opportunities developed in response to regional need), and individualized coaching by trained coaches. 21CSLA is one of several lead agencies that compose the California Statewide System of Support, an important part of the state's accountability and continuous improvement strategy that is designed to help local education agencies (LEAs) and their schools meet the needs of each student they serve. The purpose of this study is to understand how 21CSLA contributes to leadership development in California. Specifically, the study seeks to understand how 21CSLA currently supports the professional learning needs of educational leaders and how it fits within the broader state infrastructure to support educational improvement. The goal of the study is to inform policymakers and program administrators about the work and accomplishments of 21CSLA during the initiative's first 3-year grant cycle and point to ways in which the state can further support 21CSLA efforts to serve California's educational leaders.

While the United States leads the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation, schools lag behind in preparing teachers and students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To help accelerate action in U.S. public education and develop a short-term roadmap for districts and other education leaders, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) brought together over 60 state and federal policymakers, edtech innovators, school system leaders, and advocates in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2024 to participate in the Think Forward: Learning with AI forum. The setting for the Think Forward AI learning forum emphasized the importance of collective decision-making--and the consequences of getting those decisions wrong. This report reflects key learnings and conversations that emerged from CRPE's Think Forward convening, including: (1) how AI can enable needed changes in our schools; (2) how current conditions in the edtech market act as barriers to closing equity gaps; and (3) how policy and practice must adapt for lasting system change. It concludes with a short-term action plan developed by forum participants that provides an immediate path forward and outlines the roles wide-ranging stakeholders must play to address our shared challenges and opportunities.

Letters of recommendation from school counselors are required to apply to many selective colleges and universities. Still, relatively little is known about how this non-standardized component may affect equity in admissions. We use cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to algorithmically analyze a national dataset of over 600,000 student applications and counselor recommendation letters submitted via the Common App platform. We examine how the length and topical content of letters (e.g., sentences about Personal Qualities, Athletics, Intellectual Promise, etc.) relate to student self-identified race/ethnicity, sex, and proxies for socioeconomic status. Paired with regression analyses, we explore whether demographic differences in letter characteristics persist when accounting for additional student, school, and counselor characteristics, as well as among letters written by the same counselor and among students with comparably competitive standardized test scores. We ultimately find large and noteworthy naïve differences in letter length and content across nearly all demographic groups, many in alignment with known inequities (e.g., many more sentences about Athletics among White and higher-SES students, longer letters and more sentences on Personal Qualities for private school students). However, these differences vary drastically based on the exact controls and comparison groups included -- demonstrating that the ultimate implications of these letter differences for equity hinges on exactly how and when letters are used in admissions processes (e.g., among which groups of students are they used to "break ties"?). Findings do not point to a clear recommendation whether institutions should keep or discard letter requirements, but reflect the importance of reading letters and overall applications in the context of structural opportunity. We discuss additional implications and possible recommendations for college access and admissions policy/practice.

Mounting evidence supporting the advantages of a diverse teacher workforce prompts policymakers to scrutinize existing recruitment pathways. Following four cohorts of Maryland public high-school students over 12 years reveals several insights. Early barriers require timely interventions, aiding students of color in achieving educational milestones that are prerequisites for teacher candidacy (high school graduation, college enrollment). While alternative pathways that bypass traditional undergraduate teacher preparation may help, current approaches still show persistent racial disparities. Data simulations underscore the need for race-conscious policies specifically targeting or differentially benefiting students of color, as race-neutral strategies have minimal impact. Ultimately, multiple race-conscious policy solutions addressing various educational milestones must demonstrate significant effects--approximately 30% increases--to reshape the teacher workforce to align with student body demographics.

"Brown v. Board of Education" held that the educational systems of seventeen states that mandated segregated schools violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The decision helped set off the civil rights revolution. However, after so many years of backlash, schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than what existed before "Brown." "Brown" brought to a head the conflict between the professed belief in equal opportunity and the reality of clearly inferior schools for Black and Latino children. Many whites saw the desegregation changes that the courts and federal agencies ordered as a threat. From a civil rights perspective, the battle was for connecting young people of color to transformative educational opportunities. Opponents mobilized and they attacked the courts and the law. This report examines the changing patterns of segregation and diversity in U.S. public schools, updating earlier work with contemporary and historical data. At a time when U.S. social and political polarization are severe and race relations are dangerously strained, schools matter even more.