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The landscape of educational research necessitates sophisticated approaches to scholarly communication, demanding researchers to adeptly navigate diverse methodological traditions. This article provides systematic guidelines for academic writing that transcend methodological boundaries, offering practical strategies for crafting clear, ethical, and impactful scholarly work. Emphasizing the importance of structure, style, and scholarly conventions, the article addresses the complexities of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Key guidelines include adherence to ethical standards, clarity and conciseness in communication, and proper citation practices to maintain academic integrity. The article also offers insights into adapting dissertations and theses into journal articles, highlighting the challenges and opportunities for early-career researchers. As educational research evolves, the need for effective academic writing remains paramount, ensuring that valuable insights are shared and built upon within the scholarly community. By fostering excellence in academic writing, researchers can significantly contribute to the advancement of educational theory and practice.

Immigrant perspectives of learning formats are potential causes of slow integration into US society. The purpose is to investigate whether a relationship exists between perspectives of learning and instruction formats, linguistic skills development, self-directed learning and motivation in immigrant integration through the lens of Knowles (1974) theory of Andragogy. This study reviewed and consolidated findings from existing literature on community-based, nonprofit or federally funded non-credit instructional courses for immigrant adults respective of SES, linguistic and occupational skill levels. A quantitative design was applied using four instruments to; (1) assess the relationships between adult learner perspectives of learning formats, self-directed learning, English skills acquisition and integration; (2) perspectives of learning formats; self-directed learning (motivation) that affect linguistics skills acquisition and integration. This study applied a correlational approach and multiple correlational analysis with quantitative sample (n = 107). Results indicated that successful integration is influenced by learning formats. Significant correlations were found to exist between adult immigrants' perspectives of learning formats, self-directed learning and motivation, English skills acquisitioning and integration. Immigrant positive perspectives of the learning formats were found to help discriminate between poor and optimal integration. Study results can be used to help governmental, state, nonprofit and community advocacy programs determine where to change adult immigrant learning delivery to better align goals of instructions with the needs of the immigrant. Findings may also be used to increase immigrant understanding of principles in self-directed learning and successful integration strategies. Recommendations for effectively promoting the integration of adult immigrants through community services, education programs and opportunities, skills development and policy are explored.

The goal of Smithsonian Science for North and South Carolina Classrooms was to provide teachers with ongoing, differentiated professional development and research-based curricular materials to improve elementary student achievement in science, mathematics, and reading. This work used an inquiry-based science curriculum, Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, which is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and was implemented in Grades 3-5 within predominantly rural North and South Carolina school districts serving high-needs students. The Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) at the University of Memphis, a State of Tennessee Center of Excellence, was the independent third-party evaluator. CREP implemented a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to collect and analyze data using a rigorous, mixed-methods approach, including quantitative analyses of student achievement data from the Stanford-10 and state assessments, and qualitative analyses of classroom observation data, as well as teacher feedback from professional development surveys, module logs, and focus groups. For this study, 36 schools (including one split cohort being treated as one school) in seven districts within North and South Carolina were randomly assigned to treatment and comparison groups. The study cohort, followed over three academic years (2020-21 through 2022-23), was composed of more than 1,600 third grade (2020-21) students in these schools. In the comparison condition, schools used their business-as-usual science curricula and teacher professional development and did not receive Smithsonian Science curricular materials or professional development. As the pretests for achievement outcomes, students took the Abbreviated Battery of the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Tenth Edition (Stanford-10) in Reading and Math in spring of 2021 (the cohort's third grade year). The main findings and posttests included the combined sample (i.e., both states combined) for (a) the Stanford-10 Science subtest, which was administered in the spring of 2023 (the cohort's fifth grade year), and (b) spring 2023 standardized state assessment scores in Reading and Math. Using a hierarchical linear model (HLM) with school as a random effect, the analysis of the effect of Smithsonian Science for the three main findings after several years of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic was (a) positive (g = 0.18) and statistically significant (p = 0.032) on the Stanford-10 science assessment and (b) positive for both Reading (g = 0.10) and Math (g = 0.16), meaning students in the treatment group performed better than the control group, but the effects were not statistically significant. Teachers were generally positive in terms of the professional development provided, and feedback on the module logs largely supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity of implementation. Classroom observations further supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity to inquiry-based practices in treatment classrooms (e.g., use of experiential hands-on learning and level of class time dedicated to inquiry-based science). With instructional time for science lagging other subject areas, and as learning recovery in reading and math after COVID-19 receive national attention, the results demonstrate that ongoing, differentiated, high-quality professional learning and high-quality instructional materials for science instruction can support student achievement in science, math, and reading.

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires states to use a variety of indicators, including standardized tests and attendance records, to designate schools for support and improvement based on schoolwide performance and the performance of groups of students within schools. Schoolwide and group-level performance indicators are also diagnostically relevant for district-level and school-level decisionmaking outside the formal accountability context. Like all measurements, performance indicators are subject to measurement error, with some having more random error than others. Measurement error can have an outsized effect for smaller groups of students, rendering their measured performance unreliable, which can lead to misidentification of groups with the greatest needs. Many states address the reliability problem by excluding from accountability student groups smaller than an established threshold, but this approach sacrifices equity, which requires counting students in all relevant groups. With the aim of improving reliability, particularly for small groups of students, this study applied a stabilization model called Bayesian hierarchical modeling to group-level data (with groups assigned according to demographic designations) within schools in New Jersey. Stabilization substantially improved the reliability of test -based indicators, including proficiency rates and median student growth percentiles. The stabilization model used in this study was less effective for non test based indictors, such as chronic absenteeism and graduation rate, for several reasons related to their statistical properties. When stabilization is applied to the indicators best suited for it (such as proficiency and growth), it leads to substantial changes in the lists of schools designated for support and improvement. These results indicate that, applied correctly, stabilization can increase the reliability of performance indicators for processes using these indicators, simultaneously improving accuracy and equity.

This is the appendices for the full report, "Identifying the Nation's Lowest Performing Schools: Shifts Following the Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)." This study examines state identification of schools for the most intensive support to see how changes in federal laws and regulations played out nationally and at the state level, by comparing schools identified just before and just after ESSA's implementation. Specifically, it looks at two time points: 2016-17, during which there were two distinct policy contexts, with most states operating under waivers but seven states still operating under the previous No Child Left Behind policies, and 2018-19, when all states were expected to be following ESSA regulations for the first time. Of particular interest is whether the number and characteristics of identified schools--including their average student achievement and demographics--differed when comparing the set of schools identified under ESSA with the set of schools identified just before ESSA. The appendices provide supporting details on the policy being evaluated, the study methods, and supplementary analyses for the findings presented.

For more than two decades, federal law has required states to identify schools failing to provide students with a high-quality education and has led to substantial debate about how best to do so. Appropriately identifying the lowest performing schools matters because it allows state and local education agencies to target limited resources for school improvement to where they are needed most. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 sought to address perceived problems with school accountability systems under prior federal law. ESSA provided states with increased flexibility in how they design their "annual evaluation of school performance." It also introduced new requirements for states' subsequent "identification of schools for the most intensive support," now designated as those needing Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI), in part to allow states to focus on a smaller set of the lowest performing schools. This report examines if ESSA played out as policymakers expected or if there were any other, perhaps less expected, consequences for the number, types, and composition of schools that states identified. The report examines this issue by comparing schools identified for the most intensive supports just before and just after ESSA's implementation.

The pivotal role of Algebra in the educational trajectories of U.S. students continues to motivate controversial, high-profile policies focused on when students access the course, their classroom peers, and how the course is taught. This random-assignment partnership study examines an innovative district-level reform--the Algebra I Initiative--that placed 9th-grade students with prior math scores well below grade level into Algebra I classes coupled with teacher training instead of a remedial pre-Algebra class. We find that this reform significantly increased grade-11 math achievement (ES = 0.2 SD) without lowering the achievement of classroom peers eligible for conventional Algebra I classes. This initiative also increased attendance, district retention, and overall math credits. These results suggest that higher expectations for the lowest-performing students coupled with aligned teacher supports is a promising model for realizing students' mathematical potential. [The Stanford Sequoia K-12 Research Collaborative provided support for this paper.]

These are the appendixes for the report, "Stabilizing School Performance Indicators in New Jersey to Reduce the Effect of Random Error." This study applied a stabilization model called Bayesian hierarchical modeling to group-­level data (with groups assigned according to demographic designations) within schools in New Jersey with the aim of improving reliability, particularly for small groups of students. The four appendixes in the document include: (1) Theoretical review; (2) Methods; (3) Supporting analysis; and (4) Other analyses: Implications of the use of group-level data arising from relationships among demographic composition, subgroup size, and scores.

This First Look report introduces new National Household Education Survey data that provides estimates for children in the United States from birth through the age of 5 who were not yet enrolled in kindergarten by 2023 on early childhood care and education arrangements. The report also presents data on parents' ratings of factors that affected their choice of child care arrangements, degree of difficulty finding care, reported reasons for difficulty finding the desired care arrangement, and on their participation in various learning activities at home with their children.

High-quality decodable books enhance literacy by providing children with focused practice opportunities to break down sounds they have learned and apply their decoding skills. Just Right Reader (JRR) hired LXD Research to measure its impact during a pilot study in the Spring of 2024 to determine the effect of their decodable books on literacy outcomes. Conducted in four schools in an urban Texas school district, the six-week study included 93 JRR and 111 non-JRR students, with 69 students submitting implementation logs that were used to track dosage. Key findings reveal meaningful progress for JRR students from the mid-year to end-of-year assessments, outperforming Non-JRR students. JRR students showed a MAP Growth Percentile improvement of 33 points (34 to 67), compared to 23 points in Non-JRR students (31 to 54). Additionally, JRR students excelled in DIBELS ORF accuracy, with the median percentile rising from 46 to 62, while Non-JRR improved from 42 to 44. Due to the small sample, these changes were not statistically significant. Notably, the 45% of JRR students who read for 3+ hours at home (i.e., High Dosage implementation) demonstrated remarkable growth, improving from below the 14th percentile to above the 72nd percentile. Overall, the JRR program meaningfully boosted literacy development.

Mastery learning -- the process by which students must demonstrate proficiency with a single topic before moving on -- is well recognized as one of the best ways to learn, yet many teachers struggle or remain unsure about how to implement it into a classroom setting. This study leverages two field experiments to test the efficacy of a program designed to encourage greater mastery learning through technology and proactive continuous teacher support. Focusing on elementary and middle school mathematics, teachers receive weekly coaching in how to use Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) for students to follow a customized roadmap of incremental progress. Results indicate significant intent-to-treat effects on math performance of 0.12-0.22 standard deviations. Further analysis shows that these gains are concentrated among students in classrooms with at least an average of 35 minutes of practice per week. Teachers able to achieve high-dosage practice have a high degree of initial buy-in, a clear implementation strategy for when practice occurs, and a willingness to closely monitor progress and follow-up with struggling students. [The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame provided additional support for this research.]

The focus of this report is on mental health interventions delivered in K-12 neighborhood public schools. A vast array of commercially available programs, conceptual frameworks, and approaches to school-based mental health are not unanimously recommended, applied, or agreed upon. This poses a challenge to any comprehensive description or evaluation of school-based mental health. Key findings include: (1) There is a lack of high-quality evidence to support school-based mental health initiatives. Rigorous evaluations of universal programs on mental health literacy, awareness, prevention, and screening--and of many social-emotional learning programs--find neither reduced rates of mental health conditions nor improved academic outcomes; (2) The concept of school-based mental health, as currently delivered in typical neighborhood public schools, is incoherent because it primarily serves youth who are not specifically in need of mental health treatment, while insufficiently serving those with mental disorders; (3) While some youth can benefit from high-quality mental health services, universal mental health programs carry underestimated potential harms: directly, through poor-quality care, overdiagnosis, and misallocated spending; and indirectly, through wasted class time and reduced accountability in the mental health and education systems; and (4) Federal agencies responsible for school-based mental health programs provide no meaningful or coordinated guidance on essential questions such as what it means for a program to be effective, what expectations exist in "mental health deserts," and how schools should sort through numerous overlapping initiatives.

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on academic "redshirting" in kindergarten, the practice of holding a child back for a year and enrolling them in kindergarten at age 6, using student-level data on all Delaware kindergarten students from fall 2014 through fall 2022. The rate of redshirting declined by 40% in fall 2020, then increased by 44% (relative to pre-pandemic baseline) in fall 2021, and more for some subgroups of children traditionally less likely to redshirt. Further, redshirting was not restricted to children with summer birthdays, as in previous years, with growth seen across the age distribution. Redshirting had not returned to pre-pandemic baseline by fall 2022. These findings point to changes in the motivations for redshirting kindergarten students since the pandemic.

The use of four-day school weeks (4dsw) in the United States has expanded rapidly over the past two decades. Previous work examines the impact of 4dsw on student outcomes, but little research to date examines the effect on school employees even though schools in some locales have adopted 4dsw to recruit and retain staff. This paper examines the effect of 4dsw adoption in Oregon, a state with widespread 4dsw use, on teacher and other school staff retention by leveraging a staggered roll-out of the schedule using a difference-in-differences design. We find that adopting a four-day week increased turnover among teachers, but that turnover among non-teaching staff was largely unaffected. The findings suggest that policymakers interested in implementing 4dsw for improved school employee retention should exercise caution and be attentive to the full set of incentives offered to staff.

For any dual enrollment (DE) reform to be effective, educators must acknowledge and understand the diverse experiences of all DE students, especially those from historically underrepresented populations. As part of CCRC's DEEP research, the author of this brief investigates the experiences of students historically underserved in DE to understand what these students want from their DE programs and the educators who lead them. An analysis of focus group interviews with 97 predominantly Black, Hispanic, and low-income students uncovered six themes that the author frames as students' wants: (1) Students want to know about DE options earlier; (2) Students want well-informed DE advisors who empower them; (3) Students want their DE courses to be aligned with career and academic pathways in their fields of interest; (4) Students want engaging learning experiences in their online courses; (5) Students want to know how to balance the high school experience and DE coursetaking; and (6) Students want to know how to find scholarships and manage debt to help them attend college after high school. For each of these six wants, the brief describes the students' perspectives and presents research-based strategies educators can use to support DE students in the realization of these wants. The brief also outlines questions educators can ask their students to gain a better understanding of their experiences.

More than half of states have implemented tuition-free college policies aimed at reducing attendance costs and incentivizing enrollment. We review the academic literature on the design features and impacts of these tuition-free policies, and we analyze an initiative Virginia implemented in 2021 called Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3), which provides tuition-free community college to students enrolled in eligible associate degree, certificate, and noncredit occupational training programs in five high-demand fields. Our descriptive analysis of G3 from 2016-17 through 2022-23 shows that both institutions and students responded to the tuition-free messaging and eligibility criteria. Specifically, G3-eligible institutional program offerings and student enrollment in such programs both increased by roughly 30% within the first two years of program implementation. While Virginia's tuition-free policy promotes enrollment in targeted occupational programs, overall enrollment effects are partially offset by a 3% enrollment reduction in aid-ineligible transfer-oriented programs. To promote skill development and improve labor market outcomes, policymakers should ensure that programs eligible for tuition-free college include pathways to longer term credentials.

Job Corps is the largest and most comprehensive education and job training program in the United States for young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or working. Most students live at and take classes at its approximately 120 residential centers. To explore ways to improve student outcomes and reduce per-student costs, Job Corps pilot tested two nonresidential models where students received education and training at colleges, supported by intensive personal and career counseling, instead of at a center. The two pilot programs were: (1) The Job Corps Scholars (JCS) pilot program consisted of 26 colleges each delivering its own version of the Job Corps program to eligible young people; and (2) In the Idaho Job Corps (IJC) pilot program, Idaho paired its Boise Job Corps center with a nearby community college and opened three addition fully nonresidential programs at other colleges. The two pilot programs together offered 30 diverse examples of college-partnered Job Corps programs to study. The implementation and outcomes study focused on: (1) The types of students who enrolled in these programs; (2) The ability of colleges to serve young people eligible for Job Corps, who typically face more barriers than other students; and (3) The outcomes achieved by students in the pilot programs.

This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against students in other countries can not only confirm the rigor of the MCAS, but the comparison can also provide meaning to MCAS scores and ensure that they accurately measure student performance. There are two primary international exams given at regular intervals: (1) the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS); and (2) the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The strong performance on the international exams across several years and subjects, especially on TIMSS, confirmed the quality of Massachusetts K-12 schools.

This report explores how has sports participation on teams for girls and women in the United States impacted participants' leadership outcomes in adulthood. It uses a unique, original, multi-cohort, and nationally representative survey of American women and gender-diverse adults (N=2,886) who played sports on teams for girls and women when they were 5-26, and who were between the ages of 20 and 80 in 2024. It connects together of what is known about leadership development through sports in an intersectionally gendered lens to better understand why sports are important in the lives of girls, women, and gender-diverse people, and how policy and practice can best promote a gender-equitable future in sports and beyond. This work extends the first 50 years of research from the Women's Sports Foundation, which consistently recognizes how participation in sports shapes the lives of girls and women for a lifetime. It explores how, across the American workforce and in communities around the country, the skills, traits, and experiences accrued in sports help girls become leaders later in their adult lives. With an eye toward leadership emergence as a developmental phenomenon, we attend to the changing circumstances of access to sports for girls and women over time, as it was dramatically impacted by the passage and implementation of Title IX. [This report was funded by Earlystone.]

Children with disabilities remain among the most excluded from education in Global Partnership for Education (GPE) partner countries and other lower-income countries. Despite considerable activity funded both through GPE and by other donors, as well as by partner countries themselves, the level of international support to inclusive education remains too low and patchy for countries to transform their education systems so they are fully inclusive of children with disabilities. Development partners need to coordinate; help to build a stronger evidence base at global, regional and national levels; and go beyond isolated interventions to support reforms that have the potential to make the whole system more inclusive. To do this, development partners need to share knowledge on their activities globally and at the country level. This paper, and the underlying mapping exercise, aims to facilitate knowledge sharing in the sector by analyzing thematic and geographic focus areas of major development partners supporting inclusive education.

Student service member/veteran (SSM/V) university enrollment has grown exponentially in recent years. In response, many U.S. universities have developed military-focused student services to address navigational and social challenges SSM/Vs face on campus. While research suggests these services are beneficial, few studies have empirically examined how often contemporary SSM/Vs engage with them across universities, how engagement connects to predictors of university success, or how SSM/Vs describe such connections. Using social capital theory, surveys (n=531), and interviews (n=59) of SSM/Vs across four universities, we analyze SSM/V military-focused service engagement levels, correlations between engagement and campus belonging and institutional satisfaction, and SSM/V perspectives on engagement. Findings suggest SSM/Vs very rarely engage in these services. Higher engagement, however, is significantly associated with more campus belonging and institutional satisfaction. Interviewees describe how the moral support military-focused service staff offer while providing reliable administrative assistance, as well as SSM/V-dedicated spaces and community building, foster belonging and satisfaction.

Since the peak of the pandemic in 2020, enrollment in virtual schools has steadily increased, with virtual schools now accounting for approximately 1.4% of the nation's public school students. While the effects of the pandemic on student achievement and mental health have been extensively studied, research has yet to thoroughly examine the impact of the pandemic on state policies and local organizational practices related to virtual schooling. Although some believed the onset of the pandemic would fundamentally reshape virtual schooling options in K-12 education, others were more skeptical, believing expanded virtual learning options were merely a temporary fix. This study examines whether the pandemic shaped virtual schooling at both the local and state levels, and if the changes made are likely to last and/or improve equity. The authors interviewed state and local education leaders and advocates, analyzed policy documents, websites, and media, observed legislative proceedings, and examined organizational practices in a sample of schools between 2019 and 2022 in Oregon. This state had an extensive history of virtual schooling before the pandemic, and enrollment continues to grow. The findings offer important lessons for policymakers and leaders to consider as the availability of virtual schools remains widespread across the country.

Prospective students and their families use college rankings to navigate their higher education options. Rising tuition and fees have made the college decision more fraught. Recently, the major college ranking providers have revised their methodologies to reflect costs and other considerations. These revisions raise important questions about the precise qualities the rankings aim to measure. Vanderbilt University asked NORC to produce a report evaluating the methodological validity of five major college ranking systems: U.S. News & World Report (USNWR), Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Forbes' Top College list (Forbes), The Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE), and the QS World University Ranking (QS). Drawing on well-established social scientific concepts like "construct validity," this report identifies many issues in the conceptualization and construction of college ranking lists and offers methodological improvements that might address these shortcomings. The aim of this report is to inform consumers of these rankings--including college-going students, their parents, and college leaders--of the limitations of existing college ranking systems. Findings from this project will guide the development of improved systems for informing college-goers.

Robust investment in early childhood education can help expand children's access to high-quality pre-K programs. These investments can also strengthen the ability of educators to gather valuable information about young children's behaviors, skills, and competencies in order to make better decisions about how to support their learning and development. This is a critical need: Pre-K programs currently lack accurate, reliable, and routine data about children's skills and competencies. At the same time, inequities in the design and use of early learning assessments to inform decision-making mirror disparities in access to and experiences of high-quality pre-K programs and subsequent outcomes based on children's race, ethnicity, language, and geographic location. The purpose of this brief is to provide a resource to help the early childhood field use a strengths- and assets-based lens to identify and measure the skills and competencies of an increasingly diverse population of young learners in pre-K. It begins by describing some of the limitations in current early learning assessments and highlights the implications of using assessments that are not designed with and for historically margin­alized groups of children, namely children of color and those from linguistically diverse backgrounds. The brief then draws on the existing literature to identify content-focused opportunities to address shortcomings in existing assessment tools: (1) acknowledging cultural and linguistic strengths in children from historically marginalized groups, and (2) expanding measurement within domains of interest to elevate a broader range of strengths and competencies for these children. With this information, the field will have better information to help design pre-K programs that support all children's development over time.

This brief continues ongoing research by NWEA® examining the degree to which the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated school closures, influenced student learning. Prior research focused on math and reading and found that the pandemic's negative impact steadily accumulated during the 2020-2021 school year, with significant disparities in achievement and growth compared to prepandemic trends (Lewis, Kuhfeld, Ruzek, & McEachin, 2021). Although there were modest rebounds in reading and math during the 2021-2022 school year, progress toward pandemic recovery largely stalled in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, with achievement and growth trends still trailing behind prepandemic levels (Kuhfeld & Lewis, 2022; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2023; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2024). Building on previous research series focused on math and reading achievement, this brief explores how the pandemic influenced student achievement in science. It examines science test scores across seven school years to understand how COVID-19 influenced science achievement.

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share detailed results and more fully describe the sample and methods used to produce the research brief, "COVID's Impact on Science Achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024. We investigated three main research questions in this brief: 1) How did science achievement in 2021 and 2024 compare to achievement in 2019, before the pandemic? 2) How much additional schooling was required in spring 2021 and spring 2024 to return to spring 2019 levels? 3) How do these patterns differ by race/ethnicity?

The College Cost Reduction Act would overhaul the Higher Education Act, making changes to student borrowing and repayment, borrower protections, college oversight, postsecondary data, and more. The bill includes a new proposed risk-sharing model that would require colleges to repay the federal government for a calculated proportion of their previously enrolled students' unpaid federal student loans--including missed payments and waived unpaid interest, as well as discharged principal under an income-driven repayment program or under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This proportion would be calculated for each degree program at a college using a formula that accounts for college costs charged to students while enrolled and student earnings after they leave. Because this proposal would create financial liabilities for colleges that incentivize them to promote some types of degrees and programs and disincentivize others, The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) potential effects it would have by program, college, and sector. They found that the proposal would likely discourage colleges from promoting and supporting public service professions.

Five years after our 2019 analysis of student borrowing rates across the University of California (UC) system, TICAS partnered with the University of California Student Association (UCSA) again to evaluate the state of affordability and student debt for undergraduates at the UC, and their implications for student success. While our analysis finds improvement across several affordability metrics, concerning inequities in borrowing persist, especially by income, race/ethnicity, and disability status. The UC system's institutional aid program makes it a leader among its peers, but there is still room to strengthen affordability and close equity gaps in degree attainment. Our analysis offers targeted recommendations to build upon UC's efforts to strengthen student success and advance an affordability guarantee that eliminates the need to borrow. [This report was coproduced with the University of California Student Association.]

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the implementation and impact of the IDEA Public Schools' Mathematics Curriculum Redesign (MCR) effort, funded by an Innovation and Research (EIR) grant. Methods: The study used a quasi-experimental matching design to examine the effect of MCR on student achievement outcomes. The study compared outcomes between the two cohorts of students at IDEA Public Schools that piloted the MCR and matched cohorts of students in IDEA schools that had delayed implementation of MCR. Results:?The study found statistically significant differences in IDEA Geometry test scores (ES = 0.39) between treatment and comparison group students in Grade 9 and on AP Calculus exam scores between treatment and comparison group students in Grade 12 (ES = 0.57). The study also found that the MCR program met the evaluation threshold for fidelity of implementation for the two out of three key program components (development of redesigned math curriculum and teacher use of math curriculum) in some years. The program did not meet the evaluation threshold for fidelity of implementation for the third key program components (teacher training and professional development to use redesigned math curriculum) in any of the years. Implications:?Because curriculum development and implementation are ongoing and iterative, realizing all of the benefits is not immediate and may take more time to achieve desired results. Continuous improvement of the curriculum and consistent supports to teachers will contribute to continued benefits for teachers and students while moving toward reaching anticipated student outcomes.

This report presents selected findings from the 2020/22 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22), a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education. The findings in this report are based on data about a nationally representative sample of all first-time beginning students (FTBs) who entered postsecondary education for the first time during the 2019-20 academic year. BPS:20/22 is the first follow-up of a cohort of FTBs originally identified during the 2019-20 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20) and covers 3 years of students' experiences, from their first year of postsecondary education in the 2019-20 academic year through the 2021-22 academic year. The BPS:20/22 sample consisted of approximately 37,330 total students, representing the approximately 3.3 million undergraduates who were first-time postsecondary students enrolled in the 2019-20 academic year. Data from BPS can address questions about students' postsecondary enrollment patterns, continued enrollment in college, highest postsecondary credential earned, social and academic experiences and activities, and employment history. To facilitate analyses of student choices and postsecondary enrollment and credential attainment, the BPS:20/22 survey collected information on teacher effectiveness, as well as frequency and types of communication and interactions with family and friends, faculty members, and other students, which were also included in the NPSAS:20 survey. Additionally, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several survey questions asked respondents to report on employment and education disruptions and personal experiences "as a result of the coronavirus pandemic" in spring 2020 and in the 2020-21 academic year. Respondents indicated their perception of whether an experience was the result of the coronavirus pandemic. The report provides information on first-time postsecondary students' attainment and persistence rates at any institution 3 years after they began postsecondary education, along with their education and personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this report, attainment represents the students' highest postsecondary credential earned, whereas persistence describes enrollment during the 2021-22 academic year for students who had not earned a postsecondary credential. As a result, students who earned a postsecondary credential and enrolled for additional postsecondary education are accounted for in attainment rates. It is important to note that BPS:20/22 data reflect first-time postsecondary students' experiences over 3 academic years, when many students are still working toward a postsecondary credential. The 2022/25 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, which is designed to follow up with students 6 years after they began postsecondary education, will provide more comprehensive data about postsecondary attainment. This First Look shows some of the ways that BPS:20/22 data can be used. Selected findings are not intended to emphasize any particular issue, and the report does not discuss all the information presented in the tables. Readers should not infer causality from the data in this report. Although many of the factors discussed are related to each other, this report does not explore these relationships. The student- and institution-level factors in this report are just a few of the several hundred that will be available in the BPS:20/22 data.

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).

This research study explores the potential of a pedagogical model of self-regulated learning supported with Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots to enhance self-expression and reflective writing skills for novice EFL student teachers at Faculty of Education, Assiut University. The study adopted a pre-post quasi-experimental design, that starts with the identification of the necessary self-expression and reflective writing skills for the target participants (50 fresh EFL student teachers at Assiut University who were purposively selected using a screening questionnaire based on their basic IT literacy skills). A pre-test was administered to assess their initial skill levels in self-expression and reflective writing. Then, an intervention was implemented in the form of a pedagogical model designed around the principles of self-regulated learning and situated language learning, which guided the use of AI chatbots (Bing, ChatGPT, and Google Bard). This model was initially piloted on a small sample (n = 10) of EFL student teachers to check validity and reliability and then experimented with the research participants for 8 weeks during the first semester of the academic year 2023/24. Following the intervention, a post-test was conducted to measure the participants' levels of self-expression and reflective writing skills after being exposed to the interventional model, aiming to identify any improvements gained from the intervention. The results indicated a positive effect with noticeable enhancements in the EFL student teachers' skills. This suggests the potential effectiveness of the model in fostering self-expression and reflective writing skills and developing EFL student teachers' general language proficiency and IT literacy. [This paper was published in "Academic Journal of Faculty of Education, Assiut University" v40 n9 p1-50 2024.]

Four deans of instruction in small, rural junior colleges and four deans of instruction in large, urban junior colleges were interviewed, and faculty members from the small junior colleges were surveyed, in order to ascertain their opinions regarding faculty development procedures. It was found that: (1) deans felt in-service workshops to be essential while faculty were generally unconvinced as to the usefulness of such workshops; (2) consultants were felt to be useful by both deans and faculty; (3) varying methods of faculty evaluation were used, and in the small colleges the deans played a personal role in the evaluation process while in the large colleges where evaluation procedures were more systematic the deans' role was less important; (4) deans in small colleges tended to favor faculty exchange programs while deans in large colleges had reservations as to the utility of such a practice; (5) tangible recognition for teaching excellence or outstanding service was almost unanimously approved by both faculty and deans; (6) faculty and deans approved of community involvement/service as a means of faculty development; and (7) overall, while there was no great difference in the opinions of faculty members and deans' perceptions as to the deans' role in the faculty development process, there seemed to be a nominal breakdown in communications resulting in some unnecessary misunderstandings. An extensive bibliography and the survey instruments are appended. (JDS)

Described is the Parenting Program for the Prevention of Child Abuse which employs home visits to upgrade home environments and to prevent physical abuse of children up to 6 years of age. The program is noted to focus on four major areas: psychological support of the parent; obtaining social services (including health services, educational programs, and financial assistance) that are needed; resolution of inner conflicts which contribute to the danger of child abuse; and parent education in the area of parenting skills. Also explained are factors considered when making referrals to the Parenting Program, specific evaluation and treatment functions, and training of therapists. (SBH)

The paper offers a brief definition of open education from a framework which is designed to be descriptive rather than proscriptive, and then considers the problem of how educators can evaluate the effectiveness of open educational practices. Open education policies are looked at from a historical and philosophical perspective, a psychological perspective, a sociological perspective, a practical perspective, and an evaluative perspective. Then, six steps are suggested for doing evaluative research in open classroom settings: (1) define competencies, achievements, or operational-behavioral objectives that one expects to be learned by the participants in the program; (2) choose measures that are directly relevant to the expected outcomes; (3) measure the children's performance on these criteria as they begin the program; (4) observe children as they participate in the program to get a clear empirical view of what they actually did in the program; (5) remeasure the children's performance on criteria after they participate in the program; and (6) relate observed child behavior to measured change on the related criteria. These steps are explained further. It is argued that it is possible to evaluate open education if we consider educational evaluation research as "treatment effect research" and carefully define outcomes and carefully describe treatment, and then demonstrate the relationship between the two. (RC)

The Ideal Student Description Q-Sort was developed originally as a predictive instrument to determine probable success rates as teachers based upon the teacher candidate's perceptions of students in general. The Q-Sort consists of 84 items describing "openness" and "closedness" in a student and reveals the extent to which a teacher perceives students as either flexible (positive) or rigid (negative) in their interpersonal relationships, and also suggests whether the teacher is more open in his/her perceptions of students. Results of administering the Q-Sort over a four-year period indicated that participants in secondary education programs had a more negative perception of students at the outset, remained more rigid in their views, and tended to become increasingly negative over the four-year period and into their first year of teaching. The opposite was found true for students in the elementary education programs. It became apparent to the investigator that measuring student characteristics for screening purposes at a definite point in time was contrary to the concept of developmental teaching and learning, and that perceptions can be changed over a period of time provided sequences of learning activities are made available (even though secondary teaching candidates are more inflexible). The ISD Q-Sort, instead of becoming a screening device, may evolve into a counseling instrument used in planning the sequence of interpersonal relationships in teacher education indicated by the candidate's individual needs. (MB)

Project Catch-Up is an ESEA Title I reading and math laboratory project for kindergarten through sixth-grade students, operating in Southern California's Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Its philosophy is that students having difficulty in reading and math can catch up with other students. Teachers take responsibility for the achievement gains of 18 low-achieving elementary students, and aides for the gains of 10 low-achieving elementary students. Staff members are free to use whatever techniques they choose and to purchase instructional materials, which they match to clearly defined objectives. Teachers and aides plan a variety of activities for each child focused on two or three specific skills that the child needs to work on. It is recommended that Project Catch-Up should be selected for a particular school district only if it can meet project requirements in the areas of instruction, management, and communication, and organization, and if resources in the following areas are available: (1) personnel, (2) material/equipment, and, (3) facilities. Project Catch-Up is one of six projects which have been selected by the U.S. Office of Education as unusually successful for teaching reading and/or math to underachieving students in low-income areas. (Author/AM)