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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.

In August 2017, the Houston area was ravaged by one of the costliest natural disasters in history--Hurricane Harvey. In this brief, the first in a two-part series, the authors examine the effects of Harvey on student homelessness in the Houston Independent School District (Houston ISD). The authors find that student homelessness in Houston ISD quadrupled due to Harvey, and most students experiencing homelessness lived, at least temporarily, in unsheltered contexts, such as sleeping in a car or on the street. Unlike other high-profile storms such as Hurricane Katrina, students who became homeless due to Harvey tended to be broadly representative of the district in terms of their demographic characteristics. However, they differed systematically from students who experienced homelessness for conventional, economic reasons such as job loss and medical debt, who were particularly likely to be Black. The authors conclude with implications of these findings for educational stakeholders in preparation for both generational and "everyday" homelessness crises.

Catholic schools have seen more than a 30% decline in enrollment over the past 20 years. While some of the decline in enrollment may have been spurred by secular trends or the Church abuse scandal, the increase in schools of choice, principally public charter schools, may explain at least some of this decline. In this paper we estimate the effect of the opening of charter schools in proximity to Catholic schools across the entire U.S. We find that the opening of a nearby charter school has a negative impact on Catholic school enrollment and increases the likelihood that the school will close. We also find that charter openings induce greater racial isolation. Findings are especially pronounced in K8 schools, rather than high schools.

In school choice systems, many families face geographic constraints. Yet, there is limited evidence on the association between school-based transportation and students' school choice, especially in fragmented transportation contexts. Using unique data on Detroit kindergarten students' eligibility and access to school-based transportation, we find that students with access to a bus at a school-- either a traditional or shuttle-style bus--were 4-5 percentage points more likely to enroll in that school. The association was greater for traditional buses in higher-crime neighborhoods and for shuttle-style buses for farther-away choices. We did not find that this association differed by block-group-level household car ownership. Our findings suggest that school-based transportation can increase school choice access, depending on policy design and contextual factors. [This report was written in collaboration with the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research (Detroit PEER).]

Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project was undertaken by Alaska Native expert educators and linguists (aka the Yup'ik Expert Group) from the Yup'ik community in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, Central Alaska. The native experts developed their own culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten through Grade 6 Alaska Native language (Yugtun) assessment. Yup'ik experts named their assessment the Yugtun Piciryaranek Qaneryaranek-llu Cuqyun (aka Yup'ik Culture and Language Measurement). This paper focuses on a foundational component of the assessment, the Yup'ik Cultural Awareness subtest, which has two components, Nonverbal Communication and Yup'ik Worldview.

Tempe PRE was designed as a high-quality preschool program to create more opportunity for children in Tempe. In the 2021-2022 school year, NORC at the University of Chicago conducted an evaluation of Tempe PRE to understand how the program was being implemented and its effects on children and families. They also collected students' outcome data the following year once they entered kindergarten to measure impacts on achievement compared to a control group. This evaluation documented the successful early installation of a high-quality preschool program that was designed to provide novel access to children from low-income households who would not otherwise have had such an opportunity in their community. Through close collaboration among multiple local government and philanthropic partners, and with a strong, common commitment to quality, the Tempe PRE program was structured and implemented with key components hypothesized to produce positive child outcomes.

California's K-12 funding and instructional policies for English learners (ELs) have changed significantly over the past 2 decades. The major policy shifts held the potential to change student learning outcome patterns for ELs. As a first step in identifying the potential impacts of these policy shifts, this report describes changes over time in the development of academic skills and English proficiency among English learners in California. The results suggest that some combination of the policies described--from more rigorous requirements for teacher preparedness for EL students to increased funding and the introduction of transitional kindergarten--has likely made a difference in EL outcomes. This report also illuminates a gap between when students achieve English proficiency and when they are reclassified. The authors find that almost three quarters of K-cohort EL students are English proficient as measured by the California English Language development Test (CELDT) by the end of elementary school, but only half of K-cohort ELs are reclassified by that same time point. In California, where English proficiency represents only one of the four criteria students must meet to be reclassified, this discrepancy demonstrates the role played by other barriers to reclassification, most likely the criterion to demonstrate basic skills on another assessment.

In 2021, California committed to providing universal prekindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year-olds and expanding access for income-eligible 3-year-olds by 2025-2026. California UPK includes several early learning programs, including transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool Program (CSPP), Head Start, and locally funded early learning programs. To support UPK expansion, California's legislature and administration established the Universal Prekindergarten Planning and Implementation Grant in 2021, which allocated $200 million to all local education agencies (LEAs) serving kindergarteners, which include school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education. The California Department of Education surveyed all grant recipients in August 2023 about their UPK programs. This report provides an update on UPK implementation across the state through an analysis of survey responses from 1,384 LEAs, which represent almost all (95%) public school districts and two thirds (65%) of charter schools that serve elementary grades. Findings provide insights into LEAs' progress in UPK implementation related to service delivery models, facilities and transportation, instruction and assessment, strategies to support student needs, workforce development, implementation challenges, and technical assistance needs. In addition to statewide insights, the survey revealed promising practices and wide access with UPK expansion in California's four largest districts during their first year of implementation. The findings in this report may help policymakers and practitioners identify areas for additional investments and supports.

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

As women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children--through duration expansions to the kindergarten day--to better understand mothers' and families' constraints. We first show that mothers of children in full-day kindergarten spend significantly more time at work, less time with their children, less time performing household duties, and less time commuting with their children in the middle of the day relative to mothers with half-day kindergarteners. Exploiting full-day kindergarten variation across place and time from 1992 through 2022, combined with the narrow age targeting of kindergarten, we document the impact of full-day kindergarten access on parental labor supply, family childcare costs, and children's subsequent academic outcomes. Our estimates of the maternal employment effects imply that full-day kindergarten expansions were responsible for as much as 24 percent of the growth in employment of mothers with kindergarten-aged children in this time frame.

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

The Federated States of Micronesia National Department of Education (FSM NDOE) requested support from the Region 18 Comprehensive Center (R18CC) to build National and State-level knowledge of effective practices in bilingual and multilingual education. This scan offers an overview of evidence-based practices for implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of bilingual and multilingual education programs. The scan assumes that bilingual/multilingual education programs are based on the goals of two-way and immersion programs that may also accommodate heritage learning. It first begins with a brief overview of definitions of major terms utilized through the document, and then moves to discuss the following components of program implementation: (1) Program Planning and Implementation; (2) Educator Quality and Pedagogic Practice; (3) Engaging Families and Communities; (4) Assessment, Accountability, and Evaluation.

There were 42 Teach for America (TFA) members who had student schedules in both the October 2022 and February 2023 periods. Of those, 33 teachers instructed grades and subjects where students participated in the statewide assessment. The goal of this Research Brief is to estimate the instructional effectiveness of the TFA members in 2022-2023 as compared to that of other teachers in the District by examining how well students who were taught by TFA members performed academically compared to other Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) students.

We investigate the beginning of the school discipline pipeline using a reform in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that limited the use of out-of-school suspension for students in grades K-2. We find that the reform reduced the likelihood of out-of-school suspension by 1.4 percentage points (56%) and had precise null effects on test scores and disciplinary infractions. This leads us to reject a key argument in favor of early-grade suspensions: namely, that early-grade suspensions improve classroom-level outcomes. For high-risk students, we find short-run increases in test scores that persist into third grade. The reform reduced the Black-white out-of-school suspension gap by 79%. [Author Sarah Komisarow received funding from the Duke University Office of the Provost for this work.]

In-person tutoring has been shown to improve academic achievement. Though less well-researched, virtual tutoring has also shown a positive effect on achievement but has only been studied in grade five or above. We present findings from the first randomized controlled trial of virtual tutoring for young children (grades K-2). Students were assigned to 1:1 tutoring, 2:1 tutoring, or a control group. Assignment to any virtual tutoring increased early literacy skills by 0.05-0.08 SD with the largest effects for 1:1 tutoring (0.07-0.12 SD). Students initially scoring well below benchmark and first graders experienced the largest gains from 1:1 tutoring (0.15 and 0.20 SD, respectively). Effects are smaller than typically seen from in-person early literacy tutoring programs but still positive and statistically significant, suggesting promise particularly in communities with in-person staffing challenges. [On Your Mark and Uplift Education were partners in this research and additional support was provided by the National Student Support Accelerator Team.]

Decades of chronic underfunding and inequitable funding have been spiraling Pennsylvania's public school system into crisis--failing kids and threatening the future of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Court has ruled that the state's current funding system for K-12 schools is unconstitutional and the state must take action to adequately and equitably fund schools. This report provides a cautionary tale for those considering expanding existing taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools in Pennsylvania or creating a new program. Pennsylvania does not need to rely only on evidence from other states in evaluating whether to establish a new taxpayer-funded school voucher program. The reason: Pennsylvania already has two existing voucher programs now funded for a combined $470 million per year, over four times more than in 2012-13, the first year of the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) program, the newer of the two new voucher programs. The legislature first provided funds for the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program in 2001-02. This report updates a 2017 Keystone Research Center report on these two existing voucher programs, which have received about $2.6 billion in state tax credits since their inception. This report finds: (1) All students in the state do not benefit equally from Pennsylvania's voucher program--students in rural communities often don't have access and participating schools are allowed to, and do, discriminate against students; (2) By design, neither the EITC nor OSTC program requires meaningful educational or financial accountability; Scholarship organizations and schools have few reporting requirements, making it difficult to assess impact or program compliance; (3) The EITC/OSTC programs are subsidizing religious schools that have few state-required standards regarding curriculum. Some of these schools receiving public money teach creationism as science and present the Bible as factually accurate history; and (4) PA's existing voucher program subsidizes the state's most elite and expensive private schools, as well as affluent families. The inadequate accountability in Pennsylvania's $470 million OSTC and EITC programs (for 2023-24) makes clear that the state should not divert more taxpayer dollars to these programs or create a new one. At minimum, a comprehensive financial and educational audit of these programs must be done first, including to evaluate curricula schools use and make recommendations regarding basic curriculum standards. The Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and reported that, due to a lack of reporting requirements, it could not do so. Pennsylvania should also prioritize fully and fairly funding public schools, which serve all of Pennsylvania's students. A public dollar spent on expanding existing or creating new voucher programs in Pennsylvania is a dollar less that can be spent to meet the court-ordered mandate to fix the unconstitutional public school funding system.

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.

Determining whether a state's young people are on track for a life of opportunity is a difficult task for governors and state leaders. States can be both awash in data and unable to easily access and use that data to inform policy. State longitudinal data systems that meaningfully connect workforce, higher education, K-12, and early childhood outcome data from multiple state agencies over time are foundational to strong decision-making by state leaders. State leaders are charged with determining how to advance educational and workforce opportunities, particularly for historically underserved populations, including rural students, students living in poverty, English-language learners, and students of color. Policymakers need reliable, relevant, and transparent data from PK-12 to the workforce to inform decisions and allocate resources. Researchers need access to data to assess current conditions and to identify possible solutions. Finally, the public -- including parents -- needs easily accessible, user-friendly information about readiness and opportunity for young people in the state. Well-governed and well-structured state longitudinal data systems can help. Today, most states have disparate data systems that are functionally siloed off by education level, like early childhood or K-12 or higher education. Meaningfully connected and well-governed data systems make it easier to see the relationships between metrics like early-grade reading scores, high school graduation, and wage data. Disaggregated outcome data about the youngest learners up to young adults provide invaluable insights to policymakers, researchers, and parents. This report examines how state leaders should prioritize state longitudinal data systems in legislation and policymaking.

Early identification and instruction aimed at addressing potential reading difficulties is the key to preventing prolonged difficulties in learning to read and ensuring that all students are reading with proficiency by the end of third grade. Tier 1 core reading curricula needs to be: (a) evidence based, (b) systematic and structured, (c) encompass explicit word reading skills and rich language and knowledge development. Tier 2 supports and interventions and Tier 3 intensive interventions need to be: (a) evidence- based, (b) targeted towards the unique needs of individual students and instructional contexts, (c) based on assessment. Universal Screening of students for signs of dyslexia and other reading difficulties beginning in kindergarten is one of the first steps in this prevention process. The use of evidence-based practices and materials in all tiers of instruction is key to the development of skilled readers. Systematic instruction that is coherent across instructional contexts and guided by a clear scope and sequence is essential. The use of reliable and valid screening, as well as diagnostic, progress monitoring, and assessment tools ensures that further assessments, intervention, and instruction are guided by data. The use of a range of explicit evidence-based instructional approaches ensure that all students receive the instruction they need. Educator training in the complexities of reading development and difficulties empowers educators to teach, assess, and progress monitor the development of foundational reading skills, understand student data, and use data to guide instruction. This document has been reviewed and updated by a collaborative of technical content experts, including Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) staff and Wyoming educators.

California's investment in Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) reflects a commitment to providing access to UTK for all 4-year-olds in public schools by the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the implementation of transitional kindergarten (TK) presents challenges for districts in aligning this new grade coherently with existing grade levels and prekindergarten (PK) options within the context of the mixed-delivery model. This model adds complexity to achieving coherence as students transition from PK or TK to the existing district system. This report from PACE identifies four promising practices observed during the 2022-2023 school year to support access and coherence in early childhood education: (1) Coordinate across providers within the mixed-delivery model, aiming to ensure universal access and vertical alignment of PK and TK offerings; (2) Establish clear and aligned expectations for PK-3 standards and instruction across providers and school sites; (3) Monitor PK-3 student learning and progress to guide decision-making; and (4) Develop coherent professional learning that builds capacity for high-quality teaching and learning in the early grades.

In the United States, K-12 school finance is largely controlled by the states. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds are distributed based on 51 different configurations of formulas, rules, and regulations to over 13,000 districts that vary in terms of the students they serve, their ability to raise revenue locally, and many other characteristics. Good school finance systems compensate for factors states cannot control (e.g., student poverty, labor costs) using levers that they can control (e.g., driving funding to districts that need it most). The authors have devised a framework that evaluates states based largely on how well they accomplish this balance. Each state's funding is assessed while accounting directly for the students and communities served by its public schools. In this sixth edition of the annual report, the K-12 school finance systems of all 50 states and the District of Columbia is evaluated. The latest year of data presented is the 2020-21 school year. [This report was co-prepared by University of Miami School of Education and Human Development.]

The federal McKinney-Vento Act broadly defines homelessness in an effort to provide protections and supports for students living in a variety of unstable housing situations. This ensures school stability and continued enrollment at a time when a student's nighttime residence may be constantly changing. In Washington, the number of children and youth experiencing homelessness has increased since 2001, when the McKinney-Vento Act began requiring all school districts to annually report the number of students experiencing homelessness who are enrolled in schools. Due to COVID-19 school building closures, districts had difficulty identifying and serving students experiencing homelessness during the 2020-21 school year. Many districts indicated that students previously enrolled under the protections of the McKinney-Vento Act failed to connect to remote instruction and were not in contact with the districts during the closure. The number of students experiencing homelessness identified and enrolled in districts declined significantly during the 2020-21 school year. With the return of in-person instruction, districts continue to identify and enroll increasing numbers of students identified as experiencing homelessness.

Across multiple age groups and academic disciplines, research has shown that incorporating multimodal signs into instruction can enhance student learning. For instance, gesture might be synchronized with speech or written signs. The present study reports on the semiotic resources used by a teacher-researcher to support kindergarten students' developing understanding of the equal sign. An analysis of seven classroom lessons designed to advance students' understanding of the equal sign and equations in various forms revealed four categories of language and two categories of gesture used by the teacher-researcher that were specifically related to mathematical equivalence. Our findings contribute to understanding the role of multimodal signs in supporting instruction on mathematical equivalence. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Mathematics Education Research Journal."]

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of Oregon's public schools. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the goals referred to in ORS 329.015. This report also provides a tool that makes education data accessible to researchers, media, students, and families and creates a clear, complete, and factual picture of the state of education in Oregon. [For the 2021-2022 report, see ED628178.]

Concern about the state of literacy instruction in America's classrooms has recently exploded. As a result, policymakers, school system leaders, and teachers have increasingly sought to remake how children learn to read in order to improve literacy outcomes--a pursuit that has gained heightened urgency in the aftermath of the pandemic. This work, often referred to as the "science of reading," has taken many shapes, but all emphasize the use of phonics-based instruction and early intervention to improve early readers' foundational literacy skills. This report considers Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD) efforts to reimagine early literacy instruction to improve student outcomes and close gaps between historically marginalized students and their peers. This report presents findings from an in-depth look at early literacy tutoring in OUSD. This report sets out to understand the key features of the literacy tutoring program in practice, to examine the school- and districtwide conditions that shaped its efficacy and sustainability, and to explore how tutoring shaped students' literacy outcomes. Conclusions are based on a mixed-method study that included interviews with school and partner staff, a survey of literacy tutors, and and analysis of data on students' literacy outcomes. [This project was made possible by the generous support from The Oakland REACH.]

Each year, when GCSE and A level results are published, a common talking point in media coverage is how results of male and female students differ. This reflects a popular fascination with such differences, but there is also a deeper, longstanding research interest in sex differences in education, not just in England, but around the world. Research into educational sex gaps in England has a long history, but there have been few, if any, systematic examinations of sex gaps in recent years. This is particularly pertinent, as recent years have seen widespread disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and substantial reforms to GCSEs and A levels, both of which could have affected the existence and magnitude of sex gaps. Hence, there is value in looking at the state of educational sex gaps, to gain a better understanding of the state of the system following this period of change and disruption. This report documents the presence of sex gaps at multiple stages of education in England, using data from publicly available datasets that all provide data across multiple years. It addresses gaps from Early Years Foundation Stage, through early formal education in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, through to high stakes examinations at GCSE and A level, up to Higher Education applications and undergraduate degree results. Overall, results indicate that gaps in attainment and subject choice between male and female students have persisted over recent years, largely in the same directions as those identified by previous research. This suggests, then, that neither recent reforms nor pandemic-related disruption have changed the direction of existing patterns, and that, aside perhaps from uptake of some science subjects, there is limited evidence of any longer-term reduction in gaps.

As the nation transitions from responding to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to navigating its ongoing impact on youth and their communities, K-12 students continue to experience mental health and wellbeing challenges. In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each of its twelve schools in order to bolster district capacity to support mental health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify strategic opportunities for understanding and advancing the counseling program's impact as it moves into its third year. With these goals in mind, this research brief will describe findings related to three questions: (1) What is the role of RCSD's school-based mental health counselors?; (2) What are early signals or "lead indicators" of the value or impact of the counseling program?; and (3) What considerations might further improve the program as it moves into Year 3? To answer these questions, the authors conducted 19 interviews with district administrators, site administrators, and mental health counselors; and 22 participant observations of meetings related to the counseling program and student services more broadly. While the research team employed qualitative data analysis software (Dedoose 9.0.90) to facilitate the coding of qualitative data, the analysis of coded data followed a more traditional, iterative approach, moving between deductive and inductive reasoning. This research brief summarizes key findings and offers considerations for leveraging the counseling program to strengthen a district-wide, coordinated system of support for mental health and wellbeing and developing a theory-based evaluation of impact during Year 3 of program implementation. [This work is generously funded by Stanford's Office of the Provost through the Office of Community Engagement.]

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of Imagine Learning's MyPath program on student mathematics and reading achievement growth. This study examined achievement growth trajectories of kindergarten students in one suburban Midwestern district in the 2022-23 school year. NWEA MAP mathematics and reading scores served as the main outcome variables in quantitative impact analyses. As Imagine MyPath was used by all district kindergarten students, MAP mathematics and reading score growth of district kindergarten students was compared to that of matched comparison students obtained from a Similar Schools Report (SSR) provided to the district by NWEA. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered to district teachers that used Imagine MyPath to examine teacher perceptions of the program. A statistically significant positive impact of Imagine MyPath on mathematics achievement was observed, with treatment students outgaining matched comparison students by more than 2 points. Treatment students also outgained matched comparison students in reading achievement, but this difference was minimal and not statistically significant. Teacher perceptions of Imagine MyPath were largely positive, especially regarding perceived program impacts on student learning. The results of this study provide preliminary evidence regarding the efficacy of Imagine MyPath in relation to mathematics achievement. It is important to note that results from this study are derived from data in one unique district in which all students used the program. Future research may focus on contexts where some students are using Imagine MyPath while other students are participating in business-as-usual instruction.

Over the years, the nation's large urban school districts have consistently learned from the progress of their peer districts across the country. Great City School districts that have embraced the challenge of educating America's urban children have recognized the value of benchmarking their performance and growth against the progress of others. The authorization of the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to develop and implement key performance indicators across the member school districts in operations, business services, finances, human resources, and technology was followed by the authorization of the Academic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to gauge performance. This 2023 report presents an updated set of data for school year 2021-22 and presents several different ways that member districts can analyze the data themselves by disaggregating results, showing trends, and combining variables. This report focuses on the data collection and analysis of the following Academic KPIs: (1) Pre-K enrollment relative to Kindergarten enrollment; (2) Algebra I completion rates for credit by grade 9; (3) Ninth grade course failure rates--at least one core course; (4) Ninth graders with B average (GPA) or better; (5) Absentee rates by grade level; (6) Suspension rates; (7) Instructional days missed per 100 students due to suspensions; (8) AP participation rates; (9) AP-equivalent participation rates; (10) AP exam pass rates; and (11) Four-year graduation rate.

Language and culture are central to learning and human development, as they shape the ways in which people all learn and grow together. Individuals learn as members of a community that values their participation and is respectful, productive, and inclusive. This report tells the story of the UCLA Community School (UCLA-CS), a public school in central Los Angeles. This report draws from a portfolio of research-practice partnerships at UCLA-CS, and it documents the norms, structures, and practices present on campus. By providing practitioners with an example of a community school that prioritizes the needs of students in immigrant communities, this report demonstrates an approach that can serve all students. The study of UCLA-CS indicates that the following six key practices at the school contribute to its success. UCLA Community School: (1) Knows and builds on a community's history, assets, and culture; (2) Develops and articulates desired core competencies for students; (3) Nurtures shared leadership and collective agency; (4) Creates space for collaborative inquiry, professional autonomy, and teacher development; (5) Uses data and stories to elevate the school's vision and track progress; and (6) Affirms the important role that everyone plays in a community school.

Emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges make it difficult for many children and adolescents to engage and succeed at school. Research indicates that at least 20% of all children and adolescents have been diagnosed with one more mental health disorders. Behavioral problems, anxiety, and depression are the most diagnosed mental health issues, and they often co-occur. Moreover, these conditions are being diagnosed at increasingly younger ages. In the past several years there has been a rise in the number of adolescents and young adults with serious mental health issues such as major depression and suicidal ideation, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems for children and adolescents. Schools offer promise for providing intensive clinical support to the most at-risk students, and schools are necessary environment to explore the implementation of multi-modal youth mental health services. This paper provides an analysis of an intensive, in-school mental health services model developed and implemented by Effective School Solutions (ESS), a New Jersey based provider of high acuity school based mental health services for K-12 students. We analyze this multi-modal model for its effectiveness in improving educational outcomes for over 3,000 students identified as requiring intensive clinical mental health support across the 2021-22 school year. This analysis reveals that those students receiving High- versus Low-fidelity programming (i.e., multiple sessions per week for at least half of the school year versus for less than half of the school year) had better educational outcomes. Students receiving High-fidelity programming had greater improvements in grade point average (GPA) and greater reductions in absences across the school year. A higher number of in-school clinical sessions per week significantly predicted a greater increase in GPA and a greater reduction in total disciplinary incidents (including out of school suspensions) across the school year. This report provides initial promising evidence that in-school intensive mental health clinical services yield positive effects on students' educational outcomes. Though future research is needed to validate and extend these findings, schools may consider implementing such services onsite to meet students where they are and to optimize students' mental, behavioral, and educational well-being. [This white paper report was published by the Yale Child Study Center."]

Americans are dissatisfied with the public school system--and student academic outcomes have fallen to historic lows. Increasingly, state lawmakers are responding by giving parents more options for their children's education. Some of these new opportunities, such as in Arkansas and Iowa, allow every child in the state to apply. Policymakers also took crucial steps to protect parents' rights as the primary caregivers for their children. Several states adopted new parent bills of rights or prohibited attempts by schools to withhold information from parents about their children. All these reforms, including efforts to eliminate the racial prejudice caused by colleges' so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, are crucial changes that will give students more opportunities to succeed in school and in life. This "Backgrounder" lists the new state policies and describes the features of these laws.

Stakeholders and advocates in Indiana are committed to advancing strategies that improve ECE services, including workforce preparation and development, to ensure that early educators can meet the complex needs of young children. Critical to these efforts is the establishment of a well-coordinated, comprehensive professional preparation and development system that can train and support a diverse generation of pre-service educators, while also strengthening the skills of the existing ECE workforce. This study looks at how Indiana early childhood higher education programs have changed since 2015. The report describes the early childhood degree programs offered in Indiana, focusing on variations in program content, age group focus, and student field-based learning.

Prior research has clearly established the substantial expected payoffs to investments in early childhood education. However, the ability to deliver early childhood programs differs across communities with access to high quality programing especially hard to establish in rural communities. We study one program, Early Steps to School Success, to understand whether the provision of home visiting and book exchange programs in rural Kentucky can influence kindergarten readiness. Linking program data with the state longitudinal data system in Kentucky we create multiple comparison groups by matching children on known program qualification indicators to estimate whether Early Steps program participation was related to school readiness. Our estimates suggest that program participation resulted in small improvements to children's kindergarten readiness, as measured by the Brigance kindergarten readiness assessment overall score and sub-scores in language, cognitive, and physical development. Results are not sensitive to our choice of comparison group, though they appear driven by the experiences of children who participate from birth through age five or from ages three-to-five only. Our findings suggest that the Early Steps home visiting intervention may be a worthwhile intervention for improving kindergarten preparedness for children living in rural contexts.

The Understanding Children's Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) Project was a multi-year project funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. The purpose of this project was to better understand how to improve children's transitions from Head Start programs to elementary schools. The transition to kindergarten occurs within and between two distinct systems (early care and education [ECE] and K-12 education) that each work under their own governance structures, philosophies, and accountability metrics. Specifically, this project aimed to explore the definition of "successful transitions" from a multi-level and systemic perspective. Within the context of this project, the focus is on one type of ECE program--Head Start. Head Start is embedded within a broader "ECE system" that includes many other types of programs, including state-funded pre-k, child care, home-based care, friend and family care, and privately-funded centers. This report details findings from one component of the HS2K Project -- a comparative multi-case study of five Head Start and Local Education Agency (LEA) partnerships, including their families, Head Start teachers and leaders, kindergarten teachers, elementary school leaders, LEA leaders, and community partners. The case-specific descriptions should be read as in-depth illustrations of the inner workings of kindergarten transition processes as they existed and were implemented in context at the time of data collection.

One part of COVID-19's staggering impact on education has been to suspend or fundamentally alter ongoing education research projects. This article addresses how to analyze the simple but fundamental example of a multi-cohort study in which student assessment data for the final cohort are missing because schools were closed, learning was virtual, and/or assessments were canceled or inconsistently collected due to COVID-19. We argue that current best-practice recommendations for addressing missing data may fall short in such studies because the assumptions that underpin these recommendations are violated. We then provide a new, simple decision-making framework for empirical researchers facing this situation and provide two empirical examples of how to apply this framework drawn from early childhood studies, one a cluster randomized trial and the other a descriptive longitudinal study. Based on this framework and the assumptions required to address missing data, we advise against the standard recommendation of adjusting for missing outcomes (e.g., via imputation or weighting). Instead, we generally recommend changing the target quantity by restricting to fully observed cohorts or by pivoting to focusing on an alternative outcome. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness."]

When researchers code behavior that is undetectable or falls outside of the validated ordinal scale, the resultant outcomes often suffer from informative missingness. Incorrect analysis of such data can lead to biased arguments around efficacy and effectiveness in the context of experimental and intervention research. Here, we detail a new Bayesian mixture approach that analyzes ordinal responses with undetectable/uncodable behaviors in two stages: (1) estimate a likelihood of response detection and (2) estimate an Explanatory Item Response Model for the ordinal variable conditional on detection. We present an independent random effects and correlated random effects variant of the new model and demonstrate evidence of model functionality using two simulation studies. To illustrate the utility of our proposed approach, we describe an extended application to data collected during a length measurement teaching experiment (N = 186, 56% girls, 5-6 years at preassessment). Results indicate that students assigned to a learning trajectories instructional condition were more likely to use detectable, mathematically relevant problem-solving strategies than their peers in two comparison conditions and that their problem-solving strategies were also more sophisticated. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness."]

To provide a landscape of mathematics activities children experience in U.S. preschool and kindergarten classrooms, we observed time children spent in mathematics activities (and -- as a contrast -- literacy) in 101 geographically diverse early childhood classrooms in seven U.S. states. We also observed what mathematics content, grouping strategies, and management formats teachers engaged during classroom mathematics activities. Each observation lasted approximately 2 hours; collectively these observations focused on 930 children observed one to three times during the 2018/2019 or 2019/2020 school year. Averaging across individuals' data within classrooms, we found that mathematics and literacy activities comprised 5% and 45% of time observed in preschool classrooms, respectively; and 26% and 42% of time observed in kindergarten classrooms, respectively. At both grades, when mathematics activities occurred, they were proportionally more often teacher-led rather than child-led. These findings raise concerns about the paucity of mathematics and over-reliance on developmentally inappropriate teacher-managed mathematics instruction in early childhood classrooms, especially preschools. Amount of time in math did not vary by preschool auspice, but time in literacy and the proportion of math time devoted to specific math content did: In Head Start classrooms we observed lowest percentage of time in literacy (and the highest percentage of time in non-instruction) compared to all other auspices. Across auspices, numeracy was the predominant math content area overall, but especially in Head Start classrooms. Thus, some aspects of early mathematics may differ with program auspice, suggesting that recommendations to increase and improve early mathematics activities may need to consider auspice characteristics. [This paper was published in "Early Childhood Research Quarterly" v69 p25-37 2024.]

This report summarizes the results of kindergarten through fifth grade students' academic achievement outcomes in mathematics and science following four years of campus-level participation in the Launching Elementary Academic Foundations (LEAF) to STEM program. The LEAF to STEM Program consists of three key components that were adapted for K-5 teachers from a secondary STEM curricular intervention within the same charter system. The three key components were: 1) an elementary-focused project-based learning STEM curriculum, 2) ongoing professional development for participating teachers, and 3) peer-to-peer mentoring with secondary STEM teachers serving as mentors to elementary STEM teachers. The charter school system in which LEAF to STEM was implemented is ethnically and racially diverse, with a higher percentage of students of color than the state in which the system operates (86.1% vs. 71.9% students of color). The system serves a high population of students identified as at-risk, including 60% of students identified as eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch and 24% of students identified as English Language Learners. At the time of randomization, the charter system had a total of 14,572 grades K-5 students on 34 K-5 campuses. The cluster randomized-controlled trial assigned thirty-two K-5 campuses within a large charter system to a treatment/control (business-as-usual) condition using stratified sampling. Campuses were stratified into four groups based on whether a campus's total percentage of students classified as eligible for free-and-reduced price lunch (FRL) fell above or below the system-wide average percentage of FRL students. Within each of those levels, schools were further stratified into two additional groups, based on whether the percentage of a school's students meeting NWEA MAP Reading and Mathematics growth targets in the year prior to randomization to treatment was above or below the system-wide average. Student achievement in mathematics and science was measured using the NWEA MAP Rausch Interval Unit (RIT) scores for mathematics and science for all grades K through five students enrolled in campuses at the time of randomization. Mathematics baseline RIT scores, as well as RIT scores for years one (spring 2020), two (spring 2021), three (spring 2022), and four (spring 2023) of treatment were available for all students, whereas science RIT scores were only available for grades 4 and 5 students after one year (for both 4th and 5th grade students at the onset of the program) or two years of treatment (for 4th grade students only at the onset). Two-level hierarchical linear modeling (students nested in campuses) was employed to explore the impact of treatment on students' mathematics and science achievement (NWEA MAP scores) controlling for demographic background (i.e., ethnicity and gender) and prior achievement at the onset of the LEAF to STEM (beginning of year 1). Results indicated no statistically significant differences in mathematics and science achievement between students in the treatment and control conditions after four years of the exposure to the LEAF to STEM program. When broken down by the grade level, results still did not indicate any significant differences between treatment and control groups in mathematics and science achievement.