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This project is part of the American School District Panel (ASDP), a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (CRPE). This report concludes research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. This report provides a possible explanation for why lackluster student test scores continue and why school systems struggle to implement and scale targeted student supports. Significant findings in this report include: (1) A crisis in the quality of classroom teaching is, leaders say, diverting time and resources away from targeted supports for students and toward improving classroom instruction; (2) Leaders report less day-to-day chaos, but unexpected challenges in staffing and teacher development have curtailed recovery efforts. As a result, their COVID recovery plans have been difficult, if not impossible, to carry out; (3) Plans for tutoring and other customized help have been undone by leaders' need to build (or rebuild) teachers' core skills; and (4) Millions of dollars and the best of intentions and efforts notwithstanding, leaders are struggling to overcome challenges to providing baseline services to students. [For the preceding report, see "Navigating Political Tensions over Schooling: Findings from the Fall 2022 American School District Panel Survey" (ED626297).]

In this report, we update our ongoing research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what system leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. The report is part of the American School District Panel, a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Key findings include: (1) Student absences and staff shortages have sidelined the adoption of academic acceleration strategies; (2) Districts are working hard to rebuild teacher capacity and collect better data on student performance; (3) Some districts are turning back to familiar instructional strategies developed before the pandemic. Others are offering different types of support for student academic recovery to address learning loss; and (4) The pandemic has changed district priorities and reshaped the work of superintendents and senior administrators. Districts haven't given up on restoring lost learning or improving classroom instruction. But to help students who spent months out of school, they're applying high-dosage tutoring, project-based learning and career-infused education in a piecemeal fashion, rather than pursuing academic acceleration as a comprehensive approach. [For the previous report in the series, "Whack-A-Mole: School Systems Respond to Disrupted Learning in 2021," see ED618897.]

This Perspective builds on a related RAND Corporation report that describes the implementation of Findhelp at four North Carolina community colleges in 2021 and 2022. Findhelp is an online tool to connect students to resources in their communities to help meet their basic nonacademic needs. The North Carolina Community College System, with support from the John M. Belk Endowment, contracted with RAND to track the implementation and student usage of Findhelp, estimate its impacts on student success, and understand the cost-effectiveness of using the program to increase student retention. This Perspective summarizes the main findings from the longer report and then contextualizes the findings in the broader literature. While Findhelp was perceived by college staff as a low-cost and easy-to-implement tool, few students used the tool during the study period. Despite low usage rates, the study findings suggest that students who accessed Findhelp had better academic outcomes than similar students who did not access Findhelp. The broader literature suggests at least three strategies to build on lessons learned to improve support for college students' basic needs. This Perspective concludes with a discussion of these strategies to improve the uptake and effectiveness of initiatives aiming to support students' basic needs in colleges across the United States. [For the full report, "Report on the Implementation, Costs, and Impacts of the Findhelp Platform in the North Carolina Community College System. Research Report. RR-A2527-1," see ED627507.]

This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision-makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic. It begins with an at-a-glance view of an effective voluntary academic summer learning program structure (duration, class size, attendance, enrichment activities, academic curriculum) and personnel (academic teachers, enrichment instructors, and administration). Next, it provides the evidence base that supports instituting voluntary academic summer learning programs. Then a more in-depth look at the program structure and personnel of effective programs is offered. Lastly, the brief includes a section on summer programming caveats and considerations.

Florida is experiencing a shortage of high-quality mathematics teachers. According to the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), there was a critical shortage of K-12 mathematics teachers (among several other subject areas) at the start of the 2022-2023 school year (FLDOE, 2022). In this report, the authors present selected findings from the 2022 Learn Together Survey (LTS), describing the credentialing pathways taken by Florida mathematics teachers, the teachers' perspectives on the content of their teacher preparation programs, and the availability and helpfulness of resources to enter and complete a teacher preparation program. The findings of this report are descriptive and intended to contribute to Florida policymakers' understanding of the composition and preparation of the mathematics teacher workforce. Thus, implications or present recommendations are not discussed.

In 2013, the NYC Leadership Academy (NYCLA) developed a leadership intervention--the Targeted Intensive School Support (TISS) program--in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to support schools that were facing particular challenges. NYCLA asked the RAND Corporation to provide an independent evaluation of the program's implementation and effects, and those findings are detailed in this report. The TISS program consisted of five key components: (1) teaming and collaborative training in aligned preservice preparation programs for a principal and assistant principal (AP); (2) coplacement of a principal and AP into an NYC DOE school; (3) team-based coaching to support the principal and AP; (4) 328 hours of extended coaching over the first three years after placement; and (5) use of a diagnostic process to guide goal setting and coaching according to school needs. Implementation findings suggest that only two of the five key components were implemented with fidelity. A propensity weighting approach was used to compare schools with TISS principals to other schools with new principals trained through residency-based preservice programs who did not participate in TISS. Findings suggest no statistically significant differences between TISS schools and comparison schools on measures of student achievement, school culture, and principal retention. TISS schools underperformed relative to comparison schools on the measure of chronic student absenteeism. [Sponsored by NYC Leadership Academy through a subgrant from the U.S. Department of Education.]

School leaders across the United States face the challenge of creating safe and secure environments across their campuses in a way that helps promote the achievement of schools' educational objectives. To help them meet this challenge, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency asked the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center to conduct a review of the literature on physical security in kindergarten-through-12th grade (K-12) schools and other, comparable sectors to improve school leaders' understanding of how system-based security operations and physical elements can protect school occupants and mitigate the impact of threats and risks. In this report, the authors define and present a systems approach to school physical security in which five protection and mitigation elements--security equipment and technology, site and building design, people and personnel, policies and procedures, and training and exercises--integrate and work together to provide layered security benefits. Specifically, the approach to protection and mitigation elaborated here emphasizes that the policies, procedures, and training developed around school physical security tie together people and personnel with equipment, technology, and design choices to build a coherent system. School leaders need to think about how the protection and mitigation options they have in place affect the broader school mission, operations, and climate. Schools with diversity in student bodies, campus locations, and other traits will approach physical security in unique ways that match their unique needs, recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to protection and mitigation. [For the companion report, "Challenges in Implementing Physical Security Measures in K-12 Schools. Research Report. RR-A1077-2," see ED615799.]

A core responsibility of the local education agencies (LEAs) that operate kindergarten-through-12th grade (K-12) schools across the United States is creating safe and secure environments that support effective teaching and learning. To help them meet this obligation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) asked the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center to review the policy landscape and relevant literature to provide an overview of the challenges and facilitators related to school physical security. The authors synthesized the literature on physical security planning from school-specific sources and related disciplines to discuss the policy and other challenges that LEAs face in developing and implementing protection and mitigation measures for K-12 school campuses. The authors found that LEAs face pressure from families and community members and are also often constrained by limited resources (e.g., equipment, personnel), as well as a lack of expertise around physical security best practices. Few K-12-specific risk assessments exist to guide LEAs on how to choose and integrate various physical security measures, and information on the effectiveness of various solution is sparse, at best. In this report, the authors conclude with implications for policymakers and LEAs. [For the companion report, "A Systems Approach to Physical Security in K-12 Schools. Research Report. RR-A1077-1," see ED615796.]

The first step in the Validity and Reliability Study summarizes the history and purpose of California's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), reviews findings from other QRIS evaluation studies, and describes the approach to validating the system in California. The majority of this report focuses on providing context for the California QRIS and assessing the validity and reliability of the system. The structure of the study, including the thematic questions that organize the report, are presented in Exhibit 1. To provide context for the study, the researchers offer a snapshot of the status of the implementation of the QRIS using the Hybrid Rating Matrix and the issues and challenges faced by Consortia. To understand how well the QRIS defines quality, researchers reviewed the content of the Hybrid Rating Matrix, including an examination of the research base for the quality elements and rating approaches and common practices related to them across other QRISs. Researchers then conducted three activities to examine QRIS validity and reliability. To assess how well the QRIS functions as a measure of quality, the distribution of the ratings obtained from the Common Data Elements for the RTT-ELC QRIS, and the measurement properties of the rating were assessed. Drawing on their own classroom observations conducted for the study as well as data shared by the Consortia, researchers compared classroom observation scores for programs with different ratings to assess the degree to which the ratings capture quality differences as determined by an independent measure of quality. Sensitivity analyses were also conducted which compare the distribution and validity of ratings calculated using several different strategies including the local modifications to the Hybrid Rating Matrix that individual Consortia have adopted. Finally, the report summarizes the key preliminary findings of the validation study addressing six primary research questions and offering considerations for next steps.

With open admission policies, reasonable tuition rates, and convenient locations, community colleges are a good choice for many who want to improve their career outlooks or explore college to see whether a four-year program is for them. Yet, no matter their reason for entering, most students do not leave with a degree. For many years, federal and state governments have tried to increase college completion among low-income students through targeted, need-based financial aid. Although state budgets for financial aid have increased, state appropriations to support colleges and help keep tuition low have stagnated. To build evidence for state policy, RAND researchers examined the Wisconsin Grant program for technical college students. This study focused on students who applied for aid to attend one of the 16 technical colleges that make up the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) and did so at any time during the 2010-2011 to 2014-2015 school years. The study sought to answer two questions: (1) Did Wisconsin Grant aid help increase graduation rates from technical colleges?; and (2) How might financial aid policy be adjusted to improve graduation for those who most need aid? Given the existence of federal aid programs, it is unclear whether the state should provide additional help to the poorest families or complement that aid with help to middle-income families. This study therefore investigated where Wisconsin Grants had their largest impact.

Each year, more than 700,000 incarcerated individuals leave federal and state prisons and return to local communities where they will have to compete with individuals in those communities for jobs. In today's economy, having a college education is necessary to compete for many jobs, and the stakes for ex-offenders are higher than they are for others: Being able to land a job can mean the difference between successfully transitioning back into a community and returning to prison. There has been a resurgence and of interest in recent years in expanding higher education in prison at the federal and state levels, particularly expansions that offer a path to degrees or industry-recognized credentials. The 2015 U.S. Department of Education three-year Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative temporarily lifted the federal ban on Pell Grants to incarcerated individuals who otherwise met Title IV eligibility requirements and recently announced that it will expand the Second Chance Pell program to add new colleges to the experimental sites. Focusing on the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative and the experience of the Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education initiative in North Carolina--this Perspective summarizes what is known about the educational attainment and deficits of those incarcerated in state and federal prisons and about the effectiveness of educational programs in helping to reduce recidivism. It also assesses key issues remaining to be addressed. It is intended to be of interest to state and federal policymakers interested in expanding these programs and builds on other RAND Corporation research in this area.

This is the companion report to "Early Progress: Interim Research on Personalized Learning" which documents the teacher survey results for the 2013-14 school year. Researchers obtained and analyzed both qualitative and quantitative data from each school to create a broad picture of the schools' efforts to implement personalized learning and to understand the outcomes that resulted from the adoption of these new teaching and learning practices. [For the full report, see ED600865.]

This interim report from the RAND Corporation is the first in what will be a series of research reports based on an ongoing long-term study of foundation-funded schools that are using a variety of approaches to personalized learning. Although the early results are encouraging, the study does not attempt to make claims about which aspects of these schools contributed to the gains in student learning to date. This research is part of the foundation's ongoing commitment to spread effective practices across districts and charter networks, support innovative roles for teachers, and support implementation of college-ready standards. All of the schools in the study received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, either directly or through intermediary organizations, to implement personalized learning practices. Each of the participating schools in this study is affiliated with at least one of the following three foundation-supported initiatives: (1) Next Generation Learning Challenge; (2) Charter School Growth Fund's Next-Generation School Investments; and (3) the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Personalized Learning Pilots. This initial report focuses on the results for nearly 5,000 students attending 23 public charter schools that have been implementing personalized learning practices for the past two years and have two years of assessment data. Student learning growth was measured using the Northwest Education Association (NWEA)'s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) math and reading assessments each fall and spring. [For the companion report, "Early Progress: Interim Research on Personalized Learning. Teacher Surveys Responses," see ED600866.]

This large-scale effectiveness trial found a significant positive effect for high schools using Cognitive Tutor Algebra I (CTAI) in their second year of implementation, relative to similar schools that continued to use existing textbook-based algebra curricula. This positive result is important for educators and policymakers seeking ways to improve algebra achievement, and it is particularly notable because it was obtained in an effectiveness trial, in which a broad range of schools implemented the curriculum under normal conditions.

Before 2013, incarcerated individuals in North Carolina could enroll in college correspondence courses, but there was no coordinated effort to provide a path toward a postsecondary degree or credential. Furthermore, there was no coordination around reentry. The Vera Institute of Justice's Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education Project (Pathways) was a multistate demonstration project in three states--Michigan, New Jersey, and North Carolina--intended to create a continuum of higher education and reentry support services that begin two years prior to an individual's release from prison and continue in the community for two years postrelease, with the goal of educational progression and degree attainment. RAND and RTI International researchers conducted an independent evaluation of the North Carolina Pathways Program, examining the implementation of the in-prison and community components of the program, the experiences of Pathways students and staff, factors that facilitated or hindered their participation in the program, and lessons learned. The findings and recommendations will be of interest to other states, corrections officials, and educators interested in implementing postsecondary education programs for incarcerated adults. Notably, North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) continues to fund components of Pathways after the demonstration project ended. Pathways affected how NCDPS approaches both higher education in prison and reentry planning. It has led to more coordination among prisons and probation and parole officers and community resources. Because of Pathways, education has become the fourth pillar of the department's reentry focus (along with housing, employment, and transportation). [Funding support provided by the Laughing Gull Foundation and the Vera Institute of Justice.]

New Hampshire is often hailed as a state where children's well-being is high relative to other states. However, a 2017 RAND study pointed to the substantial share of children in the state who are at risk of adverse developmental outcomes because of low family resources and other factors that can compromise healthy development in the first few years of life. The RAND study also estimated that New Hampshire would gain from further investments in two types of evidence-based early childhood interventions: home visiting and preschool education, with estimated returns of $2 to $6 in benefits for every $1 invested. Despite this potential return, New Hampshire has fallen behind other states that have recognized the value of further investments in early childhood programs. Given the unmet need and potential for positive economic returns, the RAND Corporation was asked to identify ways that New Hampshire can be strategic in making new early childhood investments, with a focus on evidence-based home visiting and high-quality preschool. RAND researchers assembled data across communities in the state (defined by school districts) to understand the variation in the factors that place children and families at risk and where publicly funded early childhood programs are currently available. The 2017 RAND study showed the expected economic returns from expanding evidence-based home visiting programs and high-quality preschool programs, also informed by research evidence. The findings in this study point to a strategic approach to these investments, namely focusing first on those communities with the greatest need but with current low rates of access to early childhood programs. [For the main report, "Advancing Investments in the Early Years: Opportunities for Strategic Investments in Evidence-Based Early Childhood Programs in New Hampshire," see ED594802.]

As the demand for workers with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills grows ever higher, employers face stiff competition for qualified employees--and with retirements, the pool of employees grows ever smaller. Meanwhile, U.S. education and workforce systems could be failing to keep pace with the needs of the STEM economy, leaving talented people out of the running for STEM jobs because they lack the proper training or credentials. Researchers examined the fast-growing oil and natural gas field in three states to understand how educators and employers are working together to meet demand for workers in STEM fields, as well as how both can improve collaboration. The study focused on well-paying "middle-skills" jobs, which require specialized education beyond high school but not a four-year college degree. The research team conducted surveys and held interviews with employers, STEM field college department heads, and instructors from four- and two-year colleges. The study resulted in a deeper understanding of the challenges preventing full collaboration between educators and employers seeking to build a strong middle-skills STEM workforce, as well as ways in which employers, colleges, and instructors can overcome these challenges. [This brief describes work done in "Developing a Skilled Workforce for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry: An Analysis of Employers and Colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia" (ED595005) and "Supporting Middle-Skills STEM Workforce Development: Analysis of Workplace Skills in Demand and Education Institutions' Curricular Offerings in the Oil and Gas Sector" (ED594789).]

Proficiency-based or competency-based approaches to education are undergoing a resurgence in both K-12 and higher education settings, spurred in part by advances in digital learning technologies. These approaches allow students to progress at their own pace through a diverse range of personalized learning experiences aligned to students' interests. In a proficiency-based system, students receive credit not as a function of how much time they spend studying a subject but, rather, based on demonstrations and assessments of their learning. This study focuses on three distinct approaches to proficiency-based education. It attempts to extend the research base by describing the implementation of three diverse technology-enabled models and by providing evidence about students' experiences and learning outcomes under each model. Description of the research location. The study examines proficiency-based pathways implementation in five settings. To obtain a quasi-experimental estimate of the pilot interventions' effects on student performance in the targeted subject areas, the authors adopt a distinct approach for each site to reflect the differing scope of implementation across sites. This study highlights the role of instructional technology in facilitating proficiency-based educational approaches--both the ways in which technology is transformative and the ways in which it may be useful but less essential. It also lays bare some of the challenges in bringing proficiency-based models to scale. Though the analyses of students' outcomes are still under way, the quasi-experimental analytic results will provide new evidence on the near-term effects of proficiency-based approaches and pave the way for studies designed to yield more-robust causal inferences. A table is appended.

The Project on Incentives in Teaching (POINT) was a three-year study conducted in the Metropolitan Nashville School System from 2006-07 through 2008-09, in which middle school mathematics teachers voluntarily participated in a controlled experiment to assess the effect of financial rewards for teachers whose students showed unusually large gains on standardized tests. The experiment was designed to test the notion that rewarding teachers for improved scores would cause scores to rise. It was up to participating teachers to decide what, if anything, they needed to do to raise student performance: participate in more professional development, seek coaching, collaborate with other teachers, or simply reflect on their practices. Thus, POINT was focused on the notion that a significant problem in American education is the absence of appropriate incentives, and that correcting the incentive structure would, in and of itself, constitute an effective intervention that improved student outcomes. This report provides an introduction and overview of the POINT experiment and its impact on student achievement and teachers' attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. [An additional collaborator on this report is the University of Missouri - Columbia.]

It is important to evaluate Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs) so that policy makers and stakeholders can learn how well they are working and how they might be improved. Well-designed QRIS evaluations go beyond a "pass/fail" judgment to identify implementation successes and problems and assess what needs to be done to improve the system. A recent evaluation of a small QRIS field test in two communities in Washington State exemplifies what good evaluations can do. The evaluation provided useful findings for both policy makers and program developers by examining both "how" the QRIS was working (an implementation study), and whether the improvement approach was affecting child care quality. The findings informed a larger field test in five locations around the state. The purpose of this document is to encourage high-quality quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) evaluations by providing timely information on evaluation options to those who may be in positions to authorize, finance, design, and refine QRISs and other quality improvement efforts, including state child care administrators, legislators, and other potential funders such as foundation personnel, as well as child care and early education provider organizations. This Brief presents basic evaluation concepts, useful tools for determining the appropriate design and timing of an evaluation, and evaluation references and resources for those who wish to learn more. Readers should come away with enough background to understand the basic issues in designing evaluations of quality improvement efforts and a stronger sense of their importance.

Across the country, school districts, their stakeholders, and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about suspensions, particularly about suspending students from elementary school and disproportionately suspending ethnic/racial minority students. Suspended students are less likely to graduate, possibly because they miss the instructional time they need to advance academically. Restorative practices have gained buy-in in the education community as a strategy to reduce suspension rates. Proactively improving relationships among students and staff and building a sense of community in classrooms and schools may make students less inclined to misbehave. And addressing severe misbehavior through a restorative approach may help students realize the impacts of their actions and make them less likely to offend again. This study of the implementation of restorative practices in the Pittsburgh Public Schools district (PPS) in school years 2015-16 and 2016-17 represents one of the first randomized controlled trials of the effects of restorative practices on classroom and school climates and suspension rates. The authors examined a specific restorative practices program -- the International Institute for Restorative Practices' SaferSanerSchools™ Whole-School Change program -- implemented in a selected group of PPS schools under a program called Pursuing Equitable and Restorative Communities, or PERC. The researchers found that PERC achieved several positive effects, including an improvement in overall school climates (as rated by teachers), a reduction in overall suspension rates, and a reduction in the disparities in suspension rates between African American and white students and between low- and higher-income students. Key Findings: Effects of the Pursuing Equitable and Restorative Communities (PERC) program in Pittsburgh Public Schools: (1) Implementation of restorative practices through PERC improved overall school climates, as rated by teachers; (2) Implementation of restorative practices reduced the average suspension rate: During the study period, average suspension rates decreased in both PERC and non-PERC schools, but rates decreased more in PERC schools; (3) Suspension rates of African American students and of those from low-income families also went down in PERC schools, shrinking the disparities in suspension rates between African American and white students and between low- and higher-income students; (4) Academic outcomes did not improve in PERC schools, and actually worsened for grades 6-8; and (5) Arrest rates among PERC schools did not decrease. Recommendations: (1) Given the constraints on teachers' time, emphasize restorative practices that can be woven into the school day; (2) Ensure that school leaders understand and can model restorative practices, including by providing mandatory professional development, books and other materials, and coaching on restorative practices; (3) Establish a mechanism for school staff to meet at least once per month as a professional learning community on restorative practices; (4) Ensure that leaders at the district level can coordinate this work; (5) Set, and update, clear expectations regarding the use of restorative practices; and (6) Implement data collection systems to collect accurate information on all types of behavioral incidents and remedies.

This appendix augments a report that updates 2013 guidance to school district leaders and their partners across the country who are interested in launching summer learning programs or improving established ones. In that report, the authors present recommendations based on evaluations, conducted between 2011 and 2016, of summer programs in five urban school districts. The Wallace Foundation selected these districts--Boston; Dallas; Duval County, Florida; Pittsburgh; and Rochester, New York--for the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP), a multi-year assessment of the effectiveness of voluntary, district-led summer learning programs offered at no cost to low-income, urban, elementary students. The five districts are among the nation's most advanced in their experience with comprehensive, voluntary summer learning programs. This appendix presents: (1) Preface; (2) Tables; (3) Collection of Primary Data: (a) Summer Site Observations; and (b) Daily Site Climate Surveys; and (2) Documentation Used in Classroom Observations: (a) 2014 Classroom Observation Protocol; and (b) End-of-Day Site Survey. [For the full report "Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd Ed. RAND Summer Learning Series," see ED591732.]

Research shows that during summer, low-income and non-white students fall behind academically compared with their more-affluent and white peers. To understand whether and how district-led voluntary summer learning programs can improve outcomes for low-income students, The Wallace Foundation initiated the National Summer Learning Project in 2011 in five urban districts. The RAND Corporation's six-year study of the National Summer Learning Project culminates in this final report about districts' implementation of their summer learning programs. This second edition updates guidance first published in 2013 and is intended for district leaders and their partners across the country who are interested in launching or improving summer learning programs. Based on thousands of hours of observations, interviews, and surveys, it presents the best available guidance about how to establish and sustain effective programs. The most emphatic recommendation is to commit in the fall to a summer program, and start active planning by January with a program director who has at least half of his or her time devoted to the job. Other recommended practices include recruiting teachers with content knowledge, scheduling the program to include at least 25 hours of math and 34 hours of language arts, adopting recruitment and attendance policies aimed at high attendance rates, using written curricula that align with school-year standards, keeping a high level of engagement between adults and students even during transitions and time outside of class, and designing the program to consider cost-saving measures.

Louisiana has received recent attention for some of its new education policies and promising early results. In this report, RAND researchers provide an in-depth description of Louisiana's approach to improving student outcomes since 2012. The authors examine how the state has used various policy levers -- including mandates, resource alignment, incentives, and communication and planning processes -- to pursue reform strategies in four areas: early childhood education, K-12 academics, K-12 teacher preparation, and graduation pathways. This report sets the stage for more in-depth analyses of Louisiana's policy implementation, challenges, and student outcomes that might be linked to its reform efforts. Reports detailing these analyses will also provide recommendations on how Louisiana's and similar efforts might be improved. Key findings from the report include: (1) In each area of the Louisiana's reform efforts, there is a clarity of vision around what constitutes "high-quality" teaching and learning; (2) When reforms are not part of federal mandates, reform strategies follow a theory of implementation and action that might be more expected to lead to change; (3) State leaders engage in close communication with educators to gather feedback and promote buy-in; (4) LDOE has established partnerships with external stakeholders who have embraced the state's vision; (5) LDOE has undertaken efforts to align its mandates with incentives, resources, and tools; (6) The resources and incentives provided by the state are intended to promote equity; and (7) LDOE has created an accountability system that uses indicators of both processes and outcomes, with increasing emphasis on outcomes as students get older. [Support from Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the sponsor of the report.]

Although becoming widespread, especially in view of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and without a universally-accepted definition, most discussions of standards-based reforms (SBR) include certain commonalities, including: (1) Academic expectations for students; (2) Alignment of key elements of the educational system to promote attainment of these expectations: (3) Assessments of student achievement to monitor performance; (4) Decentralization of responsibility for decisions relating to curriculum and instruction to schools,: (5) Support and technical assistance to foster improvement of educational services: and (6) Accountability provisions that reward or sanction schools or students based on measured performance. The SBR movement reflects a confluence of policy trends, particularly, a growing emphasis on using tests to monitor progress and hold schools accountable and the belief that school reforms are most likely to be effective when all components of the education system are designed to work in alignment toward a common set of goals. Additional key ideas include an emphasis on using information produced by the system to guide instructional decision-making; an emphasis on using standards to promote instruction that is academically challenging rather than focused on low-level skills; the importance of similarly high expectations for students with different socioeconomic, racial/ethnic and linguistic backgrounds; and, perhaps most significantly, an education system in which policy and practice are driven in large part by the measurement of academic outcomes derived from large-scale assessments. Some of the hopes of early reformers have been at least partially realized, but at the same time, some of the fears of early critics have materialized. This paper summarizes what is known about SBR and suggests a foundation for a revised federal role in promoting high-quality standards and assessments. Ongoing efforts to improve the knowledge base and disseminate what is known to decision makers at all levels will be fundamental to the development of SBR systems that promote high-quality teaching and learning. (Contains 5 footnotes.)

The basic concept of personalized learning (PL) -- instruction that is focused on meeting students' individual learning needs while incorporating their interests and preferences -- has been a longstanding practice in U.S. K-12 education. Options for personalization have increased as personal computing devices have become increasingly affordable and available in schools and developers created software to support individual student learning. In recent years, it has become more common for schools to embrace schoolwide models of PL. We collected data from schools in the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC)'s Breakthrough School Models program. Our study seeks to describe the practices and strategies these schools used to implement PL, understand some of the challenges and facilitators, and consider these alongside achievement findings to discern patterns that may be informative. Teachers and students reported higher levels of many aspects of personalization than their counterparts in a national sample. These included time for one-on-one tailored support for learning; using up-to-date information on student progress to personalize instruction and group students; students tracking their own progress; competency-based practices; and flexible use of staff, space, and time. However, some more-difficult-to-implement aspects did not appear to differ from practices in schools nationally, such as student discussions with teachers on progress and goals; keeping up-to-date documentation of student strengths, weaknesses, and goals; and student choice of topics and materials. We estimate study students gained about 3 percentile points in mathematics relative to a comparison group of similar students. In reading, there was a similar trend, though it was not statistically significant. Low-performing and high-performing students appeared to benefit.

The reauthorization of the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act, referred to as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), emphasizes evidence-based initiatives while providing new flexibilities to states and districts with regard to the use of federal funds, including funds to promote effective school leadership. This report describes the opportunities for supporting school leadership under ESSA, discusses the standards of evidence under ESSA, and synthesizes the research base with respect to those standards. The information can guide federal, state, and district education policymakers on the use of research-based school-leadership interventions; help them identify examples of improvement activities that should be allowable under ESSA; and support the rollout of such interventions. A second volume will further summarize the evidence and provide tools to help policymakers and practitioners make decisions about school-leadership-improvement activities under ESSA. This report includes notes and a bibliography.

This document provides the final two appendixes for "Improving Teaching Effectiveness: Implementation. The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching through 2013-2014" (ED580306). Appendix D provides detailed discussions of lever implementation for each site along with the detailed coded lever tables. Appendix E summarizes the responses of teachers and school leaders to survey questions about the allocation of their work time.

Can districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) use contemporary ideas about teacher evaluation, management, and support to spark big improvements in student outcomes? To answer this question, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative with seven sites across the country that had diverse needs and student populations. Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) are evaluating these efforts. Although the initiative will continue through the 2015-2016 school year, interim results--based on extensive surveys, interviews, site visits, and reviews of fiscal records--offer valuable insights for those considering or adopting similar reforms. This executive summary highlights findings from the study. [For the full report, see ED580306.]

To improve the U.S. education system through more-effective classroom teaching, in school year 2009-2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching sites. The Intensive Partnerships Initiative is based on the premise that efforts to improve instruction can benefit from high-quality measures of teaching effectiveness. The initiative seeks to determine whether a school can implement a high-quality measure of teaching effectiveness and use it to support and manage teachers in ways that improve student outcomes. This approach is consistent with broader national trends in which performance-based teacher evaluation is increasingly being mandated at state and local levels. To test the theory in practice, the foundation sought partnership sites. It selected three school districts--Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, Shelby County Schools in Tennessee, and Pittsburgh Public Schools in Pennsylvania. The foundation also selected four charter management organizations--Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and the Partnerships to Uplift Communities, all in California. To evaluate Intensive Partnership implementation, researchers from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research interviewed annually central office staff at each site and teachers and other staff in a sample of schools for each site. They also used data from annual teacher and school-leader surveys and documents that the sites and the foundation provided. This report summarizes the implementation status of key reform elements at each site when the Intensive Partnerships initiative launched and five years later in the spring of 2014. [For the executive summary, see ED580307. For Appendixes D and E, see ED580322.]

The adoption of personalized learning approaches has increased significantly in recent years. This report examines achievement in 62 public charter and district schools that are pursuing a variety of personalized learning practices, and examines implementation details in 32 of those schools. Researchers obtained achievement data for personalized learning students and a matched comparison group of students attending other schools serving similar populations. They also collected and analyzed data from site visits, interviews, and surveys to create a broad picture of the schools' efforts to implement personalized learning and the perceptions of teachers and students. The achievement findings indicate that compared to peers, students in schools using personalized learning practices are making greater progress over the course of two school years, and that those students who started out behind are catching up to perform at or above national averages. The study finds that teachers at most schools were using data to understand student progress and make instructional decisions, all schools offered time for individual academic support, and the use of technology for personalization was widespread. However, some strategies, such as competency-based progression, were less common and more challenging to implement. Key findings are grouped into four sections. The first section on student achievement finds that there were positive effects on student mathematics and reading performance and that the lowest-performing students made substantial gains relative to their peers. The second section on implementation and the perceptions of stakeholders finds that adoption of personalized learning practices varied considerably. Personalized learning practices that are direct extensions of current practice were more common, but implementation of some of the more challenging personalized learning strategies was less common. The third section relates implementation features to outcomes and identifies three elements of personalized learning that were being implemented in tandem in the schools with the largest achievement effects. Finally, the fourth section compares teachers' and students' survey responses to a national sample and finds some differences, such as teachers' greater use of practices that support competency-based learning and greater use of technology for personalization in the schools in this study with implementation data. Appended are: (1) Methods for Achievement Analysis; (2) Methods for Implementation Analyses; (3) Student Survey Scales, Personalized Learning Schools; (4) Teacher Survey Scales, Personalized Learning Schools; and (5) Personalized Learning Attributes, Definitions, and Coding.

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift) is a preschool to third-grade initiative designed to boost literacy skills and ensure that children are reading proficiently by the third grade. First launched in 2012 by the County of San Mateo, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the San Mateo County Office of Education, Big Lift comprises more than 300 community organizations. The initiative targets preschool through third-grade students in seven school districts in San Mateo County, California, that have below-average third-grade reading levels. Big Lift seeks to improve third-grade reading through a set of four coordinated and integrated "pillars": High-Quality Preschool, Summer Learning, School Attendance, and Family Engagement. As part of a multiphase, independent evaluation of the Big Lift initiative, researchers at the RAND Corporation are undertaking a series of descriptive reports on participation and achievement outcomes over multiple years. To date, RAND researchers have completed two outcome studies, both focusing on the Big Lift pillars for which data are available: High-Quality Preschool and Summer Learning. The first study in this series examined the early education experiences and kindergarten readiness outcomes of children in the 2016-2017 kindergarten class -- in four "Cohort 1" districts -- who received Big Lift services. The second study in this series, summarized here, builds on these initial analyses. RAND researchers examined kindergarten readiness outcomes of children in the 2017-2018 kindergarten class in the Cohort 1 districts and in three additional "Cohort 2" districts. The researchers also followed up on the 2016-2017 kindergarten class by documenting their reading skills at the end of kindergarten and the start of first grade in the fall of 2017. Although the study contains analyses of the Big Lift Inspiring Summer program -- a free five- or four-week summer program for lower-income rising kindergartners, first-graders, and second-graders -- this brief focuses on the Big Lift preschool findings. [This brief describes work done in "The Big Lift Descriptive Analyses: Kindergarten Readiness and Elementary School Reading Outcomes for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 Kindergarten Classes" (ED595011) and "Big Lift Participation and School Entry Indicators: Findings for the 2016-2017 Kindergarten Class" (ED595013).]

This study documents the magnitude of the gaps in student performance for public school students in Pennsylvania and estimates the economic consequences of those education performance gaps. Although Pennsylvania is one of the top-scoring states on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) on average, the achievement gaps between students classified by race-ethnicity, economic status, and parent education are among the largest in the country. For eighth-grade reading and math, the share of white students in Pennsylvania achieving proficiency or above exceeds the share for African-American and Latino students by as much as 24 to 38 percentage points, depending on the assessment and subject. There are equally large differences in student achievement based on family economic status and parent education, as well as sizeable gaps in performance across school districts. If race-ethnic or socioeconomic achievement gaps were eliminated, average achievement scores for Pennsylvania would match Massachusetts' result (the top-scoring state on the NAEP) and likely place the state among the top-scoring countries internationally. The study applies several methods to value the cost of existing gaps in terms of current economic performance and to value the benefits that would accrue in the future from closing current gaps. Notably, race-ethnic academic achievement gaps amount to an estimated annual cost of $1 billion to $3 billion in lost earnings, which equates to 6 to 15 percent of the earnings for African-American and Latino workers. If student performance gaps based on race-ethnicity or family economic status were closed for future cohorts, each annual cohort in Pennsylvania would gain $3 billion to $5 billion in present-value lifetime compensation and nonmarket benefits. These social gains from closing race-ethnic gaps equate to approximately $83,000 to $125,000 in present-value dollars per African-American and Latino student. The following are appended: (1) Data Sources on Student Academic Performance; (2) Supplemental Tables; and (3) Methods for Economic Analysis.

The Leading Educators Fellowship program selects promising mid-career teachers through a competitive application process and develops their skills as leaders of school improvement efforts. The specific objectives of the program are to (1) increase the leadership skills and capacity of teacher leaders in order to improve student achievement in high-need schools and (2) retain highly effective teachers in high-need schools by encouraging commitment to the schools and improving the school leadership pipeline. This report presents findings from preliminary analyses of the program's impacts on student achievement and teacher retention in both Louisiana and Missouri in the 2011-2012 through 2013-2014 school years for teachers who are program fellows and for the teachers mentored by fellows. The findings from this early analysis of the program impacts of fellows are promising but mixed, and overall do not conclusively demonstrate that the program has affected student achievement. For mentees, the findings show some positive effects on student achievement among mentees who teach math and social studies in Louisiana. The findings do not point to a consistent pattern of retention impacts across cohorts or states. Future analyses with larger samples of both fellows and mentees will provide greater statistical power for more reliably detecting any true program effects. A technical appendix contains propensity score matching and power analyses.

The U.S. energy sector has become highly innovative in developing and applying new technologies. These innovations often require higher-paid, more-highly skilled labor, yet many employers in the region report that they have difficulty filling jobs, particularly for medium-skilled (or semi skilled) positions that require only a high school education and a certification or some additional training. To keep pace with rapid changes in technology and employers' needs, community colleges and post secondary career and technology centers need to effectively and efficiently modify existing curricula and programs and develop new ones. In addition to learning core technical skills, workers need to acquire soft skills, such as professionalism, critical thinking, and problem-solving, to better adapt to their work environments. These issues are particularly salient in West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. The region's abundant coal resources have long shaped its economy. Given this potential demand, a clear challenge facing West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania is how to support the workforce development pipeline that trains workers for these positions. is pipeline involves recruiting, training, and educating the local talent pool (both young recent high school graduates and adults already in the workforce) to fill the job and skill needs of energy-industry employers, for both the short and long terms. To improve the pipeline of trained energy-sector workers in West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania, area leaders should: (1) implement deep, enduring partnerships between employers and educational institutions for developing curricula, providing equipment, conducting alignment assessments, and offering on-the-job experiences for students; (2) provide bridge services to support social services and counseling; (3) provide comprehensive training opportunities and degree-bearing courses, integrating technical training with work readiness and basic skills; (4) improve awareness of energy-sector education, training, and employment opportunities; (5) prioritize recruitment and retention of quality instructors; and (6) address geographic constraints on students.

Higher-education institutions in Texas are increasingly exploring innovative approaches to structuring and delivering degree programs. Several institutions have developed competency-based degree programs, which aim to offer new pathways for students to obtain postsecondary credentials and to reduce higher-education costs for students by focusing on mastery of competencies rather than on seat time. These programs often differ from traditional degree programs in a variety of ways; typically they include self-paced movement through courses, online course delivery, the exclusive reliance on assessments to demonstrate mastery of competencies, reorientation of faculty roles, enhanced student supports, and movement away from tuition structures that are tied to credit hours. This report aims to describe existing competency-based degrees and certificate programs in Texas; to summarize the national landscape for competency-based programs, including the perceived benefits and limitations; and to suggest some potential areas for focus as the state of Texas and higher-education institutions explore the possibility of further expanding these programs. While this report was specifically written for Texas state policymakers and administrators at institutions in Texas, it may be informative to policymakers and higher-education leaders across the nation. Interview protocols are appended and a list of abbreviations is included.

The California Budget Act of 2012, through a trailer bill known as Senate Bill (SB) 1041, contained significant reforms to the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program. CalWORKs is California's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a central component of the safety net that provides cash aid for low-income families with children. The SB 1041 reforms to CalWORKs aim to engage participants in more-intensive work activities as early as possible, while also providing more flexibility in work activity options and increased incentives for work as participants move toward self-sufficiency. The California legislature included a provision in the bill for an independent evaluation to determine if SB 1041 achieves its objectives and if there are any unintended consequences. Evaluation of the SB 1041 Reforms to California's CalWORKs Program: Background and Study provides background on the SB 1041 policy changes and an overview of the evaluation plan. The authors highlight the factors that motivated the changes to CalWORKs, summarize the key reforms, delineate the questions underlying the SB 1041 evaluation and the evaluation approach, and explain the evaluation timetable, products, and expected utility. To determine if SB 1041 is achieving its objectives and if there are any unintended consequences, a series of reports will document the way the SB 1041 reforms were implemented across California's 58 counties, how the changes affected the number and composition of CalWORKs participants and their experience with program services, and the impact of the reforms on families and children, as well as the operations of county welfare offices. The multiyear, multicomponent evaluation will draw on primary and secondary data and employ qualitative and quantitative methods. The project was launched in July 2014 and will be completed in December 2017. Results will be made available through a series of reports released at the end of calendar years 2015, 2016, and 2017. Three appendices are included: (1) State Welfare Policies; (2) Sources of Data for Evaluation; and (3) Analytic Approach.

This executive summary describes key results from four studies carried out by the RAND Corporation as part of Phase II of its work for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The KRG asked RAND to undertake several studies aimed at improving the economic and social development of the Kurdistan Region--Iraq (KRI). RAND's work is intended to help the KRG expand access to high-quality technical and vocational education and training; improve access to and quality of health care through financing policy development, implementation of primary care recommendations, and quality and patient safety assessment and recommendations; assess the present and projected supply of labor and labor demand in the KRI to improve labor market responsiveness to private sector needs; and build capacity at the Kurdistan Region Statistics Office to prepare, conduct, and analyze the first round of the Kurdistan Region Labor Force Survey. Contents included: (1) Introduction; (2) Assessing the Present and Future Labor Market in the KRI; (3) Improving Technical and Vocational Education and Training in the KRI; (4) Health Sector Reform in the KRI; and (5) Capacity Building at the Kurdistan Region Statistics Office Through Data Collection.

For children to flourish and succeed in the 21st century, they must be able to problem solve, to develop resilience and handle stress, and to interact appropriately with peers and adults. While there is significant focus on the racial/ethnic and economic disparities in academic achievement and other cognitive outcomes, far less attention has been paid to the capacities that help build social and emotional skills. Drawing on national, state, and local data, the Urban Child Institute partnered with the RAND Corporation to explore the social and emotional well-being of children in Memphis and Shelby County, Tenn. The book highlights the essential factors in the home, child care setting, and community that contribute to social and emotional development in young children and provides a narrative around the importance of investing in efforts that have the potential to impact social and emotional development during the first few years of life. Through this book, UCI and RAND call for a dialogue on how to support the youngest citizens of the Memphis and Shelby County community, and catalyze action in this direction. [Contributing authors include: Jill S. Cannon, Anita Chandra, Anamarie Auger, Courtney Kase, Ryan Kandrack, Teague Ruder, Catherine Joyce, Rebecca Diamond, and Katherine Spurlock.]

The RAND Corporation works throughout the Middle East to analyze complex policy problems and help policymakers create enduring solutions. RAND's work in the Middle East focuses on the issues that drive economic development. This brief report provides an overview of RAND's impact in the Middle East in the areas of supporting youth, health and health care, education, energy and environment, labor market reform and private-sector development, capacity-building, and planning for the future.

The purpose of this document is to describe the methods RAND used to analyze achievement for 23 personalized learning (PL) schools for the 2012-13 through 2013-14 academic years. This work was performed at the request of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), as part of a multi-year evaluation contract. The 23 schools were selected from a larger portfolio of PL schools funded directly or indirectly by BMGF because they implemented PL school-wide during both of the two academic years and they also administered Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) both years.

The goal of the Intensive Partnership (IP) initiative is to improve student success by transforming how teachers are recruited, developed, assigned, rewarded, and retained. RAND and American Institutes for Research (AIR) have been studying the seven IP sites (including three districts and four charter management organizations--CMOs) since the 2010-11 school year to understand which strategies for improving the teaching workforce are successful. This report summarizes key findings about how school leaders and teachers have changed the way they allocate their time among various activities across the three years since implementation began (2010-11 through 2012-13). The report contains a preface, acknowledgements, and an executive summary and then presents the findings in five parts. They are: Part I: Introduction; Part II: Methodology; Part III: School Leader Time Allocation Findings; Part IV: Teacher Time Allocation Findings; and Part V: Summary and Concluding Thoughts. The report also includes the appendices: (1) Detailed Discussion of Methodology; (2) School Leader and Teacher Survey Response Rates; (3) Descriptive Statistics of Individual and School Characteristic Categories by Site and Year; (4) School Leader Time Allocation by Site; (5) Teacher Time Allocation by Site; (6) Survey Questions and Categories; (7) Analysis of Individual Questions for Selected Categories for School Leaders; and (8) Analysis of Individual Questions for Selected Categories for Teachers.

This paper reports results from a resume-based field experiment designed to examine employer preferences for job applicants who attended for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges have seen sharp increases in enrollment in recent years despite alternatives such as public community colleges being much cheaper. We sent almost 9,000 fictitious resumes of young applicants who recently completed their schooling to online job postings in six occupational categories and tracked employer callback rates. We find no evidence that employers prefer applicants with resumes listing a for-profit college relative to those whose resumes list either a community college or no college at all. Appended to the paper are; (1) Supplementary Tables and (2) Experiment Details.

This addendum to previously published results presents alternative analyses of data from large-scale effectiveness studies of Cognitive Tutor Algebra I in middle schools and high schools. These alternative analyses produce results that are substantively the same as previously reported. We find a significant positive effect of 0.21 standard deviation units for high school students in the second year of the study. An appendix containing additional tables is included. [See the study: "Effectiveness of Cognitive Tutor Algebra I at Scale," "Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis," v36 n2 p127-144 Jun 2014 at EJ1024233.]

Originally founded as a private means for diplomats' children to earn an internationally recognized high school diploma, today the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) serves students from a variety of backgrounds in 144 countries. The IB mission and Learner Profile--consisting of ten attributes to foster in students--suggest that development of students' citizenship is the core purpose of an IB education. In this study, in four public schools in California that offer the DP, I interviewed DP Coordinators, teachers (n = 15) and students (n = 24) to learn their perspectives about how and the extent to which the DP develops students' citizenship. I also surveyed students using items that were administered as part of other surveys to large samples of high school-enrolled 17 and 18 year olds. The results indicate that the DP's heavy pedagogical reliance on discussions, debates, oral presentations, written assignments and teamwork, enables students to develop many of the skills that are necessary for civic advocacy. Results also indicate that the DP places a strong emphasis on students' knowledge of issues related to public policy. Interview results indicate that the DP does not seem to strongly prioritize students' knowledge of U.S. government structure and functioning. The student survey results, however, show that compared to nationally representative samples of similarly aged 12th-grade students, the sample of IB students scored higher on nine of ten items that tested their knowledge of U.S. government history and functioning. The DP develops students' citizenship through promoting their awareness of political and social issues and required active engagement with a local or global issue. Most IB students and teachers feel that the DP develops students' academic civic mindedness and model citizenship to a considerably greater extent than other curricular alternatives (including California College Prep and Advanced Placement courses). Finally, teachers feel that the strongest limitation to their prioritization of students' citizenship development is their lack of clarity on how to frame the civic implications of the knowledge, skills and attitudes they seek to develop. The paper includes the following appendices: (1) Student interview protocol; (2) Teacher interview protocol; (3) Student survey; and (4) Student survey details.

As part of its effective teaching initiative, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with three urban school districts across the U.S. and a group of four charter management organizations to undertake a strategic set of human capital reforms. A key objective of the "Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching" program was to promote increased access among disadvantaged students to the most effective teachers in their respective sites. The IP initiative includes an integrated set of programs or levers designed to improve teacher human capital in each site and to improve the access of the most disadvantaged students to the best teachers working within a site. These levers include efforts to improve how teachers are recruited, hired, and professionally developed; how they are evaluated, rewarded, and dismissed; and how they are assigned to--or incentivized to work with--high-need students. This paper discusses trends over time in the correlation between a teacher's value-added estimate and the proportion of students in her caseload and school who are both low-income and minority (LIM). This report is the third in a series that RAND has published that documents teachers' value-added estimates in mathematics and reading by the proportion of their students who are LIM. The paper also includes an appendix containing additional tables.

Research shows low-income students suffer disproportionate learning loss over the summer and because those losses accumulate over time, they contribute substantially to the achievement gap between low- and higher-income children. The Wallace Foundation is funding a five-year demonstration project to examine whether summer learning programs can reduce summer learning loss and promote achievement gains. The full report, the first in a series, draws on emerging lessons from six school districts in the study -- Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Duval County (Florida), Pittsburgh, and Rochester (New York) -- that offer full-day programs for five to six weeks free of charge to large numbers of elementary students. Protocols and questionnaires related to the full report are presented in these appendix materials. [For the full report "Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 1st. Ed. RAND Summer Learning Series," see ED594503. For the summary to the full report "Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 1st Ed. Summary. RAND Summer Learning Series," see ED594504.]