Search

In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated assessments to measure student outcomes on those standards, and established a system for holding schools accountable when students failed to meet basic expectations. This system has helped Massachusetts' public schools become the highest performing in the country. Student outcomes in all tested subjects and across demographic groups have improved steadily over time, but disparities in achievement and attainment exist between the Commonwealth's most privileged students and their less privileged counterparts, many of whom are black or Hispanic. Without the MERA and its requirement to assess every student and publish aggregate academic outcomes, policymakers may not understand the extent of disparity or how to address it as student outcomes data are integral to understanding where Massachusetts' public schools have been, where they are going, and how they can get there. This paper illustrates the importance of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act and how it has positively impacted students over time. It explains why the current accountability system evolved as it did and why preserving the most important aspects of that system is critical if the state is going to fulfill its constitutional obligation to educate all children to a high common standard.

This paper documents the impact of home libraries on academic achievement, economic success, and health. It summarizes research that shows how children without access to reading materials at home are more likely to suffer learning losses when out of school and how home libraries are one of schools' and communities' best tools to combat learning loss. In sum, the paper illustrates the importance of creating a literacy-rich home environment for all children and outlines the essential components of a student home library--a tangible, cost-effective way to afford every child access to a bright, successful future. [This report was prepared by Scholastic Research & Validation.]

We use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to describe district-level trends in average academic achievement between 2009 and 2019. Though on average school districts' test scores improved very modestly (by about 0.001 SDs/year), there is significant variation among districts. Moreover, we find that average test score disparities between non-poor and poor students and between White and Black students are growing; those between White and Hispanic students are shrinking. We find no evidence of achievement-equity synergies or tradeoffs: Improvements in overall achievement are uncorrelated with trends in achievement disparities. Finally, we find that the strongest predictors of achievement disparity trends are the levels and trends in within-district racial and socioeconomic segregation and changes in differential access to certified teachers.

Student-teacher relationships are at the core of student experiences in schools and, arguably, fundamental to influencing student outcomes. Using a statewide, student-level school climate survey from Massachusetts, we investigate teachers' contributions to school climate, which we refer to as climate value added (VA), and how it varies by student race/ethnicity. We first show that climate VA contributes to student learning: Teachers whose students report positive feelings about climate also contribute more to student test scores and to an aggregate of nontest student outcomes (student absences, suspensions, and grade progression). And teachers identified by students of color as contributing to better school climate have outsize effects on learning gains for these students. Differences in teachers' climate effects across racial/ethnic groups are largest on topics aligned with cultural competency, school participation, and comfort with faculty. Lastly, we find that Black students assigned to Black teachers report better school climate than Black students assigned to other teachers.

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person (although there was some widening in reading gaps in those areas). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020-21 will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on academic recovery to help students recover from pandemic-related achievement losses.

A college credential can expand the range of career opportunities available to young adults. However, existing barriers to enrollment for prospective students pose equity gaps in college access and success, particularly for Black college aspirants. In Florida, racial and ethnic disparities in college enrollment contribute to disparities in educational attainment. Only 31% of Black Floridians hold a college degree. This report examines the attainment gap by exploring various factors contributing to Florida college applicants' decisions to enroll. This paper uses survey and enrollment information from two Florida community colleges (Hillsborough Community College and Miami Dade College) to identify factors related to college applicants' enrollment decisions. In the summer of 2021, nearly 15,000 applicants to the two colleges were surveyed about their pre-college experiences, and roughly 1,200 responded, resulting in a response rate of 8%. Of the respondents, 997 applicants identified as Black (i.e., African American, Black Hispanic, African, or West Indian/Caribbean).

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

We present new estimates of the importance of teachers in early grades for later grade outcomes, but unlike the existing literature that examines teacher "fade-out," we directly compare the contribution of early-grade teachers to later year outcomes against the contributions of later year teachers to the same later year outcomes. Where the prior literature finds that much of the contribution of early teachers fades away, we find that the contributions of early-year teachers remain important in later grades. The difference in contributions to eighth-grade outcomes between an effective and ineffective fourth-grade teacher is about half the difference among eighth-grade teachers. The effect on eighth-grade outcomes of replacing a fourth-grade teacher who is below the 5th percentile with a median teacher is about half the underrepresented minority (URM)/non-URM achievement gap. Our results reinforce earlier conclusions in the literature that teachers in all grades are important for student achievement.

We develop a new framework for identifying at-risk students in public schools. Our framework has two fundamental advantages over "status quo" systems: (1) it is based on a clear definition of what it means for a student to be at risk and (2) it leverages states' rich administrative data systems to produce more informative risk measures. Our framework is more effective than common alternatives at identifying students who are at risk of low academic performance and we use policy simulations to show that it can be used to target resources toward these students more efficiently. It also offers several other benefits relative to "status quo" systems. We provide an alternative approach to risk measurement that states can use to inform funding, accountability, and other policies, rather than continuing to rely on broad categories tied to the nebulous concept of "disadvantage."

Has the gap in average standardized test scores between students from high- and low-income families widened, narrowed, or remained stable over the last 3 decades? The question is important both because the achievement gap is measure of how (un)equally educational opportunities are distributed in the US, and because the disparity in educational outcomes is a leading indicator of the degree of economic mobility. If the gap is widening, it suggests that children's educational experiences and opportunities in early and middle childhood -- in their homes, neighborhoods, childcare and preschool programs, and K-12 schools -- are becoming increasingly unequal, a sign that the growing economic inequality in the US has led to a parallel growth in educational inequality. A narrowing gap, however, would suggest the opposite: changes in early childhood or K-12 schooling have been equity-enhancing, even in the face of increased economic inequality among families. And because test scores and the skills they measure are valued in college admissions and the labor market, the trend in the test score gap may predict the trend in economic mobility several decades later.

"The Issue Paper on Gender Equality in and through Education" has been produced within the framework of the European Commission's Working Group on Equality and Values in Education and Training (2021-2015). The Working Group (WG) operates within the context of the Commission's Communication of 30 September 2020 on Achieving the European Education Area by 2025 and the Council Resolution of 26 February 2021 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030). Participants of the WG comprise representatives from Member States and candidate countries, as well as from relevant European agencies, stakeholder associations, social partners and international organisations. This Issue Paper summarises the various presentations and discussions that took place during two online WG meetings held on 20 January and 10 February 2022 and in the Peer Learning Activity (PLA) held online on 21 April 2022. In line with the WG mandate, it looks at various aspects of gender equality in and through education, with a special focus on gender gaps in education, gender segregation and non-traditional education and career pathways, confronting biases in textbooks and learning materials and gender-based violence. [Title on report cover differs: "Issue Paper: Gender Equality in and through Education."]

Education has faced unprecedented disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic; evidence about the subsequent effect on children is of crucial importance. We use data from an oral reading fluency (ORF) assessment--a rapid assessment taking only a few minutes that measures a fundamental reading skill--to examine COVID's effects on children's reading ability during the pandemic in more than 100 U.S. school districts. Effects were pronounced, especially for Grades 2-3, but distinct across spring and fall 2020. While many students were not assessed in spring 2020, those who were seemed to have experienced relatively limited or no growth in ORF relative to gains observed in other years. In fall 2020, a far more representative set of students was observed. For those students, growth was more pronounced and seemed to approach levels observed in previous years. Worryingly, there were also signs of stratification such that students in lower-achieving districts may be falling further behind. However, at the level of individual students, those who were struggling with reading prior to the pandemic were not disproportionately impacted in terms of ORF growth. This data offers an important window onto how a foundational skill is being affected by COVID-19 and this approach can be used in the future to examine how student abilities recover as education enters a post-COVID paradigm. [For the policy brief, see ED612594.]

Educational inequality due to family socioeconomic status (SES) has been the focus of both public dialogue and education research in the United States for many years. The current study aims to understand how educational inequality due to family SES has changed in the United States. Specifically, the study focuses on the changes in achievement gaps between high and low SES students between 2003 and 2017 and the changes in the performance of low-SES students over time. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) grade 8 mathematics assessment were used for the analyses. Results show that the SES achievement gap at the national level has remained the same over time. State-level results suggest that 34 of the 50 states' SES achievement gaps experienced no significant change between 2003 and 2017, 14 gaps widened, and only two SES gaps narrowed. In addition, at the national level, more low-SES students achieved at the NAEP Basic and at the NAEP Proficient levels over time with a majority of states improving their low-SES students' performance. In conclusion, the study contributes to the existing literature not only by reflecting on U.S. national trends using an effective SES index, but also by providing state-level results. It also collects trend data on states' macro-level indicators, including economic growth, social inequality, and educational expenditures, allowing state-specific findings to be presented in the context of changes in macro-level context. Initial explorations of relationships between state SES achievement gap trends and macroeconomic factors are presented to motivate future research. The trends in SES achievement gaps and the specific policy contexts are presented in greater detail for 13 states/jurisdictions.

Equal educational opportunity is a core American value. Yet many children of low-income or minority racial or ethnic status attend public schools that are lower quality compared with those that white children or high-income children attend. And data indicate that, on average, low-income or minority children score lower on states' elementary-school accountability tests compared with higher-income children or white children. Such test-score gaps serve as evidence of unequal educational opportunity. This study uses information from metropolitan areas and from school districts to understand which factors are strongly related to the size of racial and socioeconomic test-score gaps. One key factor is the degree to which state aid to school districts is distributed progressively--that is, distributed disproportionately to districts with high fractions of students living in poverty--with progressive distributions associated with smaller test-score gaps in high-poverty metros or districts. Second, test-score gaps are larger in metropolitan areas and districts where poverty segregation is greater, that is, where, compared with white children or higher-income children, minority children or low-income children go to school with, or are in school districts with, more students from low-income families.

This study aims to understand the role that reading motivation plays in middle school reading achievement (including achievement gaps) by analyzing the 2015 grade 8 NAEP reading data. The study focuses on identifying the unique effects of student-level reading motivation and aggregated school-level mean reading motivation on reading achievement. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to partition variability in student reading achievement into within- and between-school components after student- and school-level demographic variables are taken into account. In addition, this study investigates whether the identified unique effects of reading motivation on reading achievement vary by gender, race/ethnicity, English language learner status (ELL), and other demographic variables. Finally, the study examines the roles that students' demographic characteristics and reading motivation play in understanding reading achievement gaps based on students' race/ethnicity and ELL status Results show that student reading motivation is substantially associated with student reading achievement, even after taking into account student gender, race/ethnicity, and SES, ELL, IEP statuses, and interaction terms, which comports with the literature on the effects of reading motivation on reading achievement. In addition, the study identifies the unique and substantial effect of school-level mean motivation on school mean reading achievement even in the presence of other school demographic variables, which highlights the significant role schools might have on promoting students' academic development.

Rising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socio-economic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP [Long-Term Trend assessment administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress], Main-NAEP, TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study], and PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] that are psychometrically linked over time, we trace trends in achievement for U.S. student cohorts born between 1954 and 2001. Achievement gaps between the top and bottom quartiles of the SES distribution have been large and remarkably constant for a near half century. These unwavering gaps have not been offset by improved achievement levels, which have risen at age 14 but have remained unchanged at age 17 for the past quarter century.

This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school district bonds, test scores, and house prices for 29 U.S. states and a research design that exploits close elections with staggered timing, we show that increased school capital spending raises test scores and house prices on average. However, impacts differ vastly across types of funded projects. Spending on basic infrastructure (such as HVAC) or on the removal of pollutants raises test scores but not house prices; conversely, spending on athletic facilities raises house prices but not test scores. Socio-economically disadvantaged districts benefit more from capital outlays, even conditioning on project type and the existing capital stock. Our estimates suggest that closing the spending gap between high- and low-SES districts and targeting spending towards high-impact projects may close as much as 25% of the observed achievement gap between these districts. [Additional support from The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management.]

In low-income countries, private schools are perceived as superior alternatives to the public sector, often improving achievement at a fraction of the cost. It is unclear whether private schools are as effective in middle-income countries where the public sector has relatively more resources. To address this gap, this paper takes advantage of lottery-based admissions in first grade for a Mexico City private school that targets and subsidizes attendance for low-income children. Over three years, selected students via lottery scored 0.21 standard deviation higher than those not selected in literacy tests, corresponding to a normalized gain of one-half of a grade level every two years. Lottery winners also statistically outperformed those not selected in math, but the gains were more modest. Relative to the control group, parents of selected students were more satisfied with their school and had higher educational expectations for their children. Unlike findings from low-income countries, these gains came at increased cost--twice as much on a per pupil basis relative to public schools. Additional analyses indicate gains made by the lowest income students in the sample help explain the school's impact. This suggests private schools could bring down persistent achievement gaps in these countries, but puts into question the validity of implementation at scale. [This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice.]

U.S. public schools are highly segregated by both race and class. Prior research shows that the desegregation of Southern schools in the 1960s and 1970s led to significant benefits for black students, including increased educational attainment and higher earnings. We do not know, however, whether segregation today has the same harmful effects as it did 50 years ago, nor do we have clear evidence about the mechanisms through which segregation affects achievement patterns. In this paper we estimate the effects of current-day school segregation on racial achievement gaps. We use 8 years of data from all public school districts in the U.S. We find that racial school segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in 3rd grade, and with the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gaps is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty: racial segregation appears to be harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower-poverty schools. Finally, we conduct exploratory analyses to examine potential mechanisms through which differential enrollment in high-poverty schools leads to inequality. We find that the effects of school poverty do not appear to be explained by differences in the set of measurable teacher or school characteristics available to us.

This paper studies the contribution of parental influence in accounting for cross-country gaps in human capital achievements. We argue that the cross-country variation in unobserved parental characteristics is at least as important as the one in commonly used observable proxies of parental socio-economic background. We infer this through an indirect empirical approach, based on the comparison of the school performance of second-generation immigrants. We document that, within the same host country or even the same school, students whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Differential selection into emigration does not explain this finding. The result is larger when parents have little education and have recently emigrated, suggesting the importance of country-specific cultural traits that parents progressively lose as they integrate in the new host country, rather than of an intergenerational transmission of education quality. Unobserved parental characteristics account for about 15% of the cross-country variance in test scores, roughly doubling the overall contribution of parental influence.

Tiebout theorizes that local public services are provided more efficiently if costs are paid out of local revenues rather than by inter-governmental grants. But if local politics is not as pluralistic as Dahl has argued, citizens of higher socio-economic status will exercise greater influence, resulting in higher inequalities in service provision. We use administrative data to estimate the impacts of local revenue shares on individual performance of a nationally representative sample of over 140,000 U.S. eighth graders in math and reading. Causal effects are estimated with geographic discontinuity models and 2SLS models that use change in housing prices as an instrument. For every 10 percent increase in local revenue share, students perform about 0.05 standard deviations higher. Gains from local funding are less for disadvantaged students. Local financing affords better education for all but widens achievement gaps.

Concerns about the breadth of the U.S. income distribution and limited intergenerational mobility have led to a focus on educational achievement gaps by socio-economic status (SES). Using intertemporally linked assessments from NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress], TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey], and PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment], we trace the achievement of U.S. student cohorts born between 1954 and 2001. Achievement gaps between the top and bottom deciles and the top and bottom quartiles of the SES distribution have been large and remarkably constant for a near half century. These unwavering gaps have not been offset by overall improvements in achievement levels, which have risen at age 14 but remained unchanged at age 17 for the most recent quarter century. The long-term failure of major educational policies to alter SES gaps suggests a need to reconsider standard approaches to mitigating disparities.

Despite the multifaceted causes of educational disparities, schools' responsibility for reducing inequality undergirds American ideals. Educators operate as street-level bureaucrats to accomplish this equalizing work. Surprisingly, we know little about how teachers think about inequality or enact strategies to combat it, even though their execution of this mandate is almost certainly mediated through pre-existing understandings. This paper provides a framework (applicable to other sectors) to examine educators' beliefs about inequality and their role in advancing equity. To progress, teachers need to believe that doing so is valuable, feel empowered to overcome disadvantage, and be willing to make tradeoffs in pursuit of equity goals. Our framework highlights the salience of individual differences between low and high achievers as a form of inequality that may divert teachers' focus from the structural inequality that is central to policy and sociological concern. We test this framework empirically using novel survey data from over 1,500 teachers collected in a diverse urban school district. Although most surveyed teachers believe addressing inequality is important and feel empowered to do so, many seemingly equity-minded educators do not endorse strategies aligned with closing racial and socioeconomic inequality--indicating an important barrier to reducing inequality.

In the first systematic study of gender achievement gaps in U.S. school districts, we estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English Language Arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 school districts in the U.S. We use state accountability test data from third through eighth grade students in the 2008-09 through 2014-15 school years. The average school district in our sample has no gender achievement gap in math, but a gap of roughly 0.23 standard deviations in ELA that favors girls. Both math and ELA gender achievement gaps vary among school districts and are positively correlated -- some districts have more male-favoring gaps and some more female-favoring gaps. We find that math gaps tend to favor males more in socioeconomically advantaged school districts and in districts with larger gender disparities in adult socioeconomic status. These two variables explain about one fifth of the variation in the math gaps. However, we find little or no association between the ELA gender gap and either socioeconomic variable, and we explain virtually none of the geographic variation in ELA gaps.

We use panel data in Washington State to study the extent to which teacher assignments between fourth and eighth grade explain gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students--as defined by underrepresented minority status (URM) and eligibility for free or reduced price lunch (FRL)--in their eighth grade math test scores and high school course taking. We find some significant gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students in the value added of the teachers to which they are assigned in these grades, although gaps in middle school grades are sensitive to the specification of value added. We then show that teacher assignments are highly predictive of both eighth-grade test scores and advanced course taking in high school, and that differences between advantaged and disadvantaged students in teacher assignments explain significant portions of student outcome gaps. In the case of eighth-grade test scores, the URM/non-URM gap drops by more than 15% and the FRL/non-FRL gap drops by more than 20% when we control directly for teacher assignments. That said, the reduction in the achievement gap is more modest when we control for measures of teacher value added that do not control for classroom characteristics (8% and 9%, respectively), while gaps actually increase slightly when we control for measures of value added that control for classroom characteristics. These patterns are qualitatively similar and even larger in magnitude when we consider the number of advanced math courses taken in high school as the outcome.

The Center for Positive Practices (CPP) conducted an analysis and synthesis of K-12 educational achievement gaps in New Mexico. The white paper was requested by the New Mexico based Coalition for the Majority, which includes various institutions, organizations and individuals supporting the New Mexico English Learner Teacher Preparation Act. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize some current research preferably conducted in New Mexico regarding the achievement gap faced by two academically lower-achieving ethnic sub-groups: Hispanic/Latino and Native American students. These ethnic populations account for about 60 percent and 10 percent respectively of the state public education system. Based on NAEP results, New Mexico school children have for more than 20 years performed lower than the national average in what are often considered the fundamental subjects of mathematics, reading, writing, and science. With just a few exceptions, New Mexico frequently ranks near the bottom across grades and academic subjects when compared to all 50 U.S. states. When disaggregated both nationally and within-state, results show that the studied ethnic groups consistently perform at lower levels. Because of the multivariate nature of achievement gaps in education, the author finds that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that would solve the equity issues across the state's many districts and schools. Current national and statewide strategies are not producing adequate solutions for reducing the gaps. CPP suggests that schools need to combine in-school action research with external guidance to find solutions at the school level. The state system should also increase relevant training and supports in action research strategies for the stream of future leaders and emerging experts we place into education. Doing so will improve their performance capabilities for their respective roles as active researchers, analysts, strategists and evaluators (i,e. experts) in their specific contexts, which includes the classroom level. Also included is Appendix A: Legislative History.

The change of government in 2010 provoked a large structural change in the English education landscape. Unexpectedly, the new government offered primary schools the chance to have "the freedom and the power to take control of their own destiny", with better performing schools given a green light to convert to become an academy school on a fast track. In England, schools that become academies have more freedom over many ways in which they operate, including the curriculum, staff pay, the length of the school day and the shape of the academic year. However, the change to allow primary school academisation has been controversial. In this paper, we study the effect for the first primary schools that became academies. While the international literature provides growing evidence on the effects of school autonomy in a variety of contexts, little is known about the effects of autonomy on primary schools (which are typically much smaller than secondary schools) and in contexts where the school is not deemed to be failing or disadvantaged. The key finding is that schools did change their modes of operation after the exogenous policy change, but at the primary phase of schooling, academisation did not lead to improved pupil performance. An appendix provides information on the way in which the sample of pupils and schools are selected for the analysis of primary academies and on issues related to the school income and expenditure data analysed in the paper. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre for Economic Performance's Education and Skills Programme.]

States that received federal waivers to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act were required to implement reforms in designated "Focus Schools" that contribute to achievement gaps. In this study, we examine the performance effects of such "differentiated accountability" reforms in the state of Louisiana. The Focus School reforms in Louisiana emphasized school-needs assessments and aligned technical assistance. These state reforms may have also been uniquely high-powered because they were linked to a new letter-based school-rating system. We examine the impact of these reforms in a sharp regression discontinuity (RD) design based on the assignment of schools to Focus status. We find that, over each of three years, Louisiana's Focus School reforms had no measurable impact on school performance. We discuss evidence that these findings may reflect policy uncertainty and implementation fidelity at the state and local level.

The existence of a "socioeconomic achievement gap"--a disparity in academic achievement between students from high- and low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds--is well-known in educational research. The SES achievement gap has been documented across a wide range of countries. What is unknown in most countries is whether the SES achievement gap might be "changing" over time. This study combines 30 international large-scale assessments over 51 years, representing 100 countries and about 5.8 million students. Results indicate that on average globally, SES achievement gaps have increased for all three available measures of family SES: parents' education, parents' occupation, and the number of books in the home. These trends are partially explained by expanding school access and declining fertility rates.

There is mounting evidence of substantial "teacher quality gaps" (TQGs) between advantaged and disadvantaged students, but practically no empirical evidence about their history. We use longitudinal data on public school students, teachers, and schools from two states--North Carolina and Washington--to provide a descriptive history of the evolution of TQGs in these states. We find that TQGs exist in every year in each state and for all measures we consider of student disadvantage and teacher quality. But there is variation in the magnitudes and sources of TQGs over time, between the two states, and depending on the measure of student disadvantage and teacher quality.

The idea of a skills gap suggests that employers have jobs available but cannot find skilled applicants because higher education is poorly aligned with workforce needs. This idea is shaping higher education and workforce development policy at the national and state levels, yet limited research exists on the experiences of employers and educators with skills needs, teaching and training, and cross-sector relations. Using field theory to conceptualize the complex relations among specific industrial and educational contexts, the skills valued by actors within them (i.e., cultural capital), and how college-to-workforce transitions involve moving from one field to the next, we analyze interview data from 145 educators and employers. Results indicate a shared view that skills are not simply "skills" nor are they reducible to occupational categories, but instead involve complex habits of mind that encompass cognitive, inter-, and intra-personal competencies. Analyses also highlight the importance of active learning to cultivate these competencies, the paucity of workplace training, widespread use of screening for "culture fit" as part of hiring, and the existence of multiple forms of cross-sector partnerships that cultivate students' social and cultural capital. We conclude that the skills gap, and the current focus on structural solutions such as career pathway programs and apprenticeships, is an incomplete response to a complex, cultural, and pedagogical problem. Instead, policymakers should focus on supporting the "skills infrastructure" in a systemic fashion by investing in teacher professional development, career services, and a variety of cross-field partnerships. Ultimately, we conclude that by narrowing ideas about the purpose of higher education to a sole focus on vocational preparation, the skills gap idea is fueling policies and practices that undermine the interests of employers, students, and society.

This white paper outlines factors in the general education setting that contribute to equitable success for all students. The paper addresses elements of equity, inclusion, and opportunity that can minimize or eliminate success gaps that exist among groups of students. Success gaps are those differences in a variety of educational factors and outcomes that affect the likelihood of success for some groups of students compared to their peers. Some key areas of success gaps include test scores, disciplinary actions, placement in special programs, graduation, and post-school outcomes. When a school or district shows success gaps, it means that it may not be serving all groups of students equally well. The white paper provides the research-based background that supported development of a complementary rubric that school or district teams can use to systematically examine the root causes of success gaps that may exist among groups of their students. The white paper has been updated and now includes include considerations for children as young as preschool. [This is a republication of the document originally published by the Disproportionality Priority Team (DPT) of the Regional Resource Centers Program (RRCP), in collaboration with the Data Accountability Center at Westat and the National RTI Center at AIR.]

Despite the international commitment to Roma social inclusion from 2005 onwards, the overall situation has not significantly changed. In education, important achievements have been reached, mainly in terms of access to primary. Yet, Roma students still lag behind. This paper maps policy initiatives for Roma inclusion in European education systems, analyses remaining challenges and explores policy perspectives. It first describes European countries' conceptualisation and categorisation of ethnic groups. In doing so, it differentiates colour-blind countries that prohibit diversity data and prioritise integrated approaches in policymaking, and countries that collect such data and use targeted approaches. This work then identifies initiatives aimed at improving Roma students' inclusion and recurrent challenges, such as segregation in education and anti-Gypsyism. The few evaluations available indicate that best practices are those that (1) combine mainstream and targeted approaches; (2) are community-based, with a genuine participation of Roma; (3) are conscious of cultural disparities; and (4) adopt an intercultural approach.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the key elements of school and district level Performance Index scores (PI scores) for the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) across the United States. PI scores are partial or overall summative ratings of schools or districts currently used across US state accountability systems to assess organizational performance. In this study, we first extracted 14 elements from 49 PI calculation metrics for states in the U.S and conducted a descriptive analysis to provide an overview of which data elements are used across the different calculation metrics for each state and what role PI scores play in state accountability systems. Second, we categorized the fourteen elements into seven categories proposed by the most recent ESSA regulations (81 FR 34539 §200.14-16, 2016) and examined how each state integrated each element in their PI score calculations. Third, we conducted a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis to compare the similarities and differences of PI calculation metrics across the states. The results indicate that there are few commonalities in PI score calculation metrics across the states, as each state has its own methods in addressing the requirements of NCLB and now ESSA. The goal of this report is to inform decisions across states on PI score calculations through summarizing overall ratings and metrics nationally used to hold schools and districts accountable as states move toward implementing the recent Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA) regulations.

In this study we examine trends in segregation by race and ethnicity in higher education from 1985 to 2013. We have three key findings. Over the past 30 years, students from different groups have attended college at increasingly similar rates; gaps are decreasing. But these decreases have been driven largely by large increases in minority student enrollment at non-degree granting and two-year colleges. Once we condition on attendance at a degree granting school, we see "increasing" gaps over time. Finally, among only four-year colleges, attendance has been tilted in favor of White students and been relatively unchanged for nearly 30 years. The only exception to this has been for the very few minority students who are able to enroll at the most selective institutions.

Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning, sets out a grand ambition for education systems around the globe to achieve not just universal primary schooling, but to expand universal education from early childhood to secondary school and achieve relevant learning outcomes. While the Millennium Development Goals helped propel millions of children into primary school, meeting this larger goal in the coming decade and a half will require accelerated progress and a break from business as usual. This report, prepared by researchers from the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution for the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, describes the major gaps in education and the need for innovation to meet ambitious goals. Not only are children in low- and middle-income countries about 100 years behind their peers in measures of schooling, but rapid advances in technology, changes to the world of work, and the complex global challenges we face today call for a broader set of competencies every young person will need to be successful. To thrive in a changing world, young people will need skills and competencies that include information literacy, flexibility, critical thinking and collaboration in addition to academic knowledge. To achieve this broader vision of education will take new approaches that can reach children who have not yet been reached, get better results in learning outcomes, and drive down costs. This study surveyed the current landscape of innovations in education by conducting a scan and compiling an inventory of programs, schools, and tools currently being used around the globe to achieve these aims. To be as inclusive as possible, the scan included innovations which have not yet been proven through rigorous evaluations as well as many small-scale innovations.

This study examined whether or not fourth-graders could fully demonstrate their writing skills on the computer and factors associated with their performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) computer-based writing assessment. The results suggest that high-performing fourth-graders (those who scored in the upper 20 percent in the computer- and paper-based writing assessments on the NAEP) write better on the computer than on paper and can fully demonstrate their writing proficiency in a computer-based assessment. There are, however, indications that low-performing fourth-graders (i.e., those in the bottom 20 percent) and middle-performing fourth-graders (representing the middle 60 percent) may have performed less well on the computer than on paper. This suggests a potential differential effect of writing on the computer on writing performance that might have contributed to the widened achievement gap between high- and non-high-performing (i.e., low- and middle-performing) students in the 2012 computer-based pilot assessment, compared to the 2010 paper-based pilot assessment. Unequal prior exposure to writing on the computer and preference for mode of writing (paper vs. computer) appear to be associated with this widening of the achievement gap. For example, about 94 percent of high-performing students in 2012 reported having access to the Internet at home, compared to about half (52 percent) of low-performing students. The score difference between those with access to the Internet at home and those without was substantive, with an effect size of 0.87. The statistics presented in this report are estimates based on a NAEP pilot assessment conducted with a nationally representative sample of 10,400 grade 4 students. As a pilot assessment, the sample was not adjusted to account for nonresponse bias. As a result, the sample may not completely represent the grade 4 population. The following are appended: (1) Exact text of questions in the 2012 NAEP Writing Contextual Questionnaires; (2) Tables; (3) Tables for Chapter 3; (3) Tables for Chapter 4; (4) Tables for Chapter 5; and (5) Figures. [The American Institutes for Research provided technical and editorial services.]

School systems around the United States are heavily segregated by income and race. At the same time, an achievement gap between white and nonwhite students persists despite many efforts to close it. Against this background, in this white paper the authors explore the history and successes of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity program, better known as METCO. The paper begins by examining segregation in the United States and in Massachusetts. [This white paper contains a preface by Gerard Robinson.]

Although it is clear that racial segregation is linked to academic achievement gaps, the mechanisms underlying this link have been debated since Coleman published his eponymous 1966 report. In this paper, I examine 16 distinct measures of segregation to determine which is most strongly associated with academic achievement gaps. I find very clear evidence that one aspect of segregation in particular--the disparity in average school poverty rates between white and black students' schools--is consistently the single most powerful correlate of achievement gaps, a pattern that holds in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. This implies that high-poverty schools are, on average, much less effective than lower-poverty schools, and suggests that strategies that reduce the differential exposure of black, Hispanic, and white students to poor classmates may lead to meaningful reductions in academic achievement gaps.

We combine satellite-based pollution data and test scores from over 10,000 U.S. school districts to estimate the relationship between air pollution and test scores. To deal with potential endogeneity we instrument for air quality using: (1) year-to-year coal production variation; and (2) a shift-share instrument that interacts fuel shares used for nearby power production with national growth rates. We find that each one-unit increase in particulate pollution reduces test scores by 0.02 standard deviations. Our findings indicate that declines in particulate pollution exposure raised test scores and reduced the black-white test score gap by 0.06 and 0.01 standard deviations, respectively.

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person (although there was some widening in reading gaps in those areas). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020-21 will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on academic recovery to help students recover from pandemic-related achievement losses.

Within OECD countries, Sweden has historically welcomed large numbers of migrants, in particular migrants seeking humanitarian protection. Since 2015, this large influx of new arrivals with multiple disadvantages has put a well-developed integration system under great pressure and highlighted a number of challenges for education policy given current institutional frameworks. PISA 2015 shows that immigrant students fare considerably worse than native students in terms of academic and well-being outcomes also after accounting for differences in social-economic background. The OECD has identified four priority areas for Sweden for closing the gap between immigrant and native students: (1) Facilitating the access of immigrants to school choice, (2) Building teaching capacity, (3) Providing language training and (4) Strengthening the management of diversity. The findings in this Spotlight Report are based on existing OECD work in the area of immigrant integration in education, OECD and national data, a questionnaire on the range of policies and practices in Sweden and good practice examples for the integration in the education system in peer-learner countries and regions [Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and North America (Canada and the United States)], which were identified of particular relevance for Sweden. The report also includes policy pointers on what policies and practices Sweden could adopt to respond to the current integration challenges in the four priority areas.

This chapter provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

There are large gaps in reading skills by family income among school-aged children in the United States. Correlational evidence suggests that reading skills are strongly related to the amount of reading students do outside of school. Experimental evidence testing whether this relationship is causal is lacking. We report the results from a randomized evaluation of a summer reading program called Project READS, which induces students to read more during the summer by mailing ten books to them, one per week. Simple intent-to-treat estimates show that the program increased reading during the summer, and show significant effects on reading comprehension test scores in the fall for third grade girls but not for third grade boys or second graders of either gender. Analyses that take advantage of within-classroom random assignment and cross-classroom variation in treatment effects show evidence that reading more books generates increases in reading comprehension skills, particularly when students read carefully enough to be able to answer basic questions about the books they read, and particularly for girls. [Metametrics Inc. provided additional support for this report.]

It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries' patterns in the evolution of disparities in literacy by SES background as cohorts age and asks which patterns of educational and labour force participation predict a narrowing rather than a widening of these disparities. Since there is no international longitudinal study of skills across the entire adult life span, this study uses three cross-sectional international adult studies (International Adult Literacy Survey, Adult Literacy and Lifeskills and Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) and matches birth years to create synthetic cohorts. Results indicate that there is large cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities associated with SES background. Disparities in literacy proficiency tend to widen when SES disparities in high school completion, professional and blue-collar employment increase. Disparities narrow when workers exit the labour force, a finding that is explained by the large inequalities in the employment experiences of individuals from different SES backgrounds, measured by differences in use of literacy skills at work. These results help to explain cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities by SES background, which has implications for policies aimed at closing skills gaps over the life course. [Funding from the OECD Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship Programme.]