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Professional societies (ProSs) are instrumental in shaping science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) cultural norms. Existing legacy structures designed to serve majority groups and constructed in service of dominant norms and values present a clear obstacle to attracting, retaining, and serving minoritized STEM professionals, such as women, particularly women with additional intersecting marginalized statuses (Solebello et al., 2016). In this perspective article, we in the Amplifying the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success project, known as ACCESS+, explain our development of an adapted diversity, equity, and inclusion assessment tool. ACCESS+ is an NSF ADVANCE Partnership that is adapting a pre-existing tool known as the Diversity and Inclusion Progression Framework, which was developed in the United Kingdom jointly by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Science Council (2021). As with the original version, the purpose of the U.S. adaptation--the Equity Environmental Scanning Tool, or EEST--is to provide STEM ProSs with a way to benchmark their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, discern areas of organizational strength, and identify foci for organizational remediation. In this piece, we share background information for EEST refinement, including content adaptations and structural changes.

To increase faculty participation and to recognize the strategic educational position held by undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities (URSCA) in many institutions, faculty mentorship of undergraduate students needs to be valued as a standard component of workload and formally included in activity reports and evaluations, including those that lead to reappointment, tenure, and promotion. This white paper presents the need for recognition of faculty mentorship of URSCA, recommends best practices for institutions to adopt, offers a selection of case studies that features some of these practices, and summarizes upcoming challenges. [This white paper is published by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). For "Undergraduate Research: A Road Map for Meeting Future National Needs and Competing in a World of Change. CUR White Paper No. 1," see ED600981.]

Stackable credentials--sequential postsecondary awards that allow individuals to progress on a career path--have been suggested as a way to enhance the labor market prospects of middle-skill workers. Yet, thus far, little evidence has been provided on the economic value of these credentials. Here, we report a series of estimates on the association between stackable credentials and earnings. We use national, survey, and college-system-level datasets. A significant body of evidence indicates that the labor market returns to certificates--along with those to college degrees--are positive. But our estimates of stackable credentials show only weakly positive and inconsistent gains from these award combinations. Generally, these estimates are indistinguishable from the returns to only one postsecondary credential. There is no clear evidence of how earnings vary across types of stack--progressive, supplemental, or independent--or student characteristics. However, estimated earnings gains from stackable credentials may be imprecise. Few college students stack awards, the motives for stacking are unknown, and notably, the number of stacked awards depends on whether general vocational awards are included. Future research should examine why students stack awards and how they can choose combinations of awards that maximize their earnings gains from stacking.

This paper examines the returns to math courses relative to courses in other subjects for students in community college. Using matched college transcript and earnings data on over 80,000 students entering community college during the 2000s, we find that college-level math coursework has an indirect positive effect on award completion that is stronger than that of coursework in other subjects. In terms of direct effects, we find mixed evidence on the direct effect of enhanced math skills on earnings over other college-level skills. Overall, the combined direct and indirect effect appears to be adverse: compared with other courses or college pathways, more math coursework in community college is modestly associated with relatively lower earnings in later adulthood. However, this association is sensitive to modeling, and we do find heterogeneous results by gender, race/ethnicity, and initial college ability, as well as by math field and level. Two supplementary tables are appended.

Community colleges are increasingly being pressed to demonstrate efficiency and improve productivity even as these concepts are not clearly defined and require a significant set of assumptions to determine. This paper sets out a preferred economic definition of efficiency: fiscal and social cost per degree. It then assesses the validity of using IPEDS data to calculate efficiency for the community college system. Using IPEDS, I estimate the fiscal cost per associate degree at $52,900 for comprehensive community colleges and $42,740 for vocational colleges (in 2008 dollars); the social costs per degree are $71,610 and $56,930, respectively. The community college sector has become more efficient over time: fiscal and social costs per degree are lower in real terms in 2008 than they were in 1987. However, two issues are important to the validity of IPEDS: the ability to adjust for differences in student ability and the way that transfer patterns are incorporated. This paper addresses both of them. Total Annual Expenditures: Community College Sector is appended. (Contains 6 figures, 3 tables, and 44 footnotes.)

This paper aims to provide an overview of evidence of schools' engagement in Fairtrade in the UK through the Fairtrade Foundation's Fairtrade School Awards programme. The paper provides a summary of the comments from schools' engagement with the programme based on data from teachers and pupils' learning with evidence from the different levels of the award. The paper also aims to locate the evidence from the award programme within the broader landscape of global learning in the UK. [This report was produced in partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation.]

Books shape how children learn about society and social norms, in part through the representation of different characters. To better understand the messages children encounter in books, we introduce new artificial intelligence methods for systematically converting images into data. We apply these image tools, along with established text analysis methods, to measure the representation of race, gender, and age in children's books commonly found in US schools and homes over the last century. We find that more characters with darker skin color appear over time, but "mainstream" award-winning books, which are twice as likely to be checked out from libraries, persistently depict more lighter-skinned characters even after conditioning on perceived race. Across all books, children are depicted with lighter skin than adults. Over time, females are increasingly present but are more represented in images than in text, suggesting greater symbolic inclusion in pictures than substantive inclusion in stories. Relative to their growing share of the US population, Black and Latinx people are underrepresented in the mainstream collection; males, particularly White males, are persistently overrepresented. Our data provide a view into the "black box" of education through children's books in US schools and homes, highlighting what has changed and what has endured. [Additional funding for this report was provided by UChicago BFI, UChicago CDAC, NAEd/Spencer, and UChicago Career Advancement.]

This report results from an evaluation of the National Research Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship program. The study sought to determine: (1) whether NSF fellows show evidence of more timely degree completion and early career success; (2) whether graduate fellows and minority graduate fellows experience similar education and career success; and (3) whether the individual award aspect of the program enhanced the educational experience and career options of fellows. A 52-item survey questionnaire measured attendance patterns, completion rates, and time to degree of 9,035 NSF fellows who received first-year awards between 1979 and 1993. The study found positive effects on all three dimensions for female fellows and for recipients of minority graduate fellowships, suggesting a "signaling" effect both for individuals and their departments. The importance of the individual award aspect of the fellowships varied by discipline and by other sources of graduate funding support available in individual departments. Appended are seven data tables and illustrative graphics. (Contains 17 references.) (CH)

This study is one in a series that examines cohorts of American Rhodes scholars in order to determine how changing dynamics of merit, sponsorship, and democratization affect elite membership, socialization, occupational structures, and perceptions of leadership. This segment of the study examines the ways in which elite baccalaureate credentials interact with pre-college cultural capital to shape distinctive career outcomes. The sample (n=220) included two cohorts of Rhodes scholars from the late 1940s and the late 1960s, and the research sought to determine: (1) whether between World War II and the late 1960s Rhodes scholars had become more diverse in terms of social origins; (2) whether an upper-class background increased the likelihood of achieving professional prominence; (3) whether attendance at a "big 3" graduate school had an independent effect on career prominence; (4) whether social class and educational effects on career attainment differed for Rhodes scholars in the 1940s and 1960s; and (5) what interactions of social background, baccalaureate origins, and graduate school prestige affect career prominence. The study concluded that factors outside of formal education and social background account for the majority of the variation in the career pathways of Rhodes scholars chosen for eminence. (Contains 40 references.) (CH)

In the Australian higher education scene the importance of recognizing effective teaching is gaining increasing prominence. Issues of academic accountability and the increasing scarcity of financial resources for higher education have added pressure to the debate about what constitutes quality in higher education. Central to this debate is the issue of the extrinsic rewards available for teaching competence or teaching excellence. Within the older universities, excellence in research within traditional disciplines has been rewarded by research grants and by promotion procedures much more than excellence in teaching has been. Within the post-1987 universities there are pressures to develop high level research profiles. This study looks at one strategy which has been used in an attempt to redress the research/teaching imbalance and promote quality in higher education, namely that of awards for teaching excellence. An analysis of survey responses from 37 Australian institutions of higher education about how they viewed teaching awards is reported, together with comment on the possible benefits and drawbacks of these awards. Suggestions are made for modifying them in a way which deals with the criticisms of some existing programs. Contains 17 references. (Author/GLR)

This study describes the teacher pay for performance plans designed and implemented by the public schools participating in the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program in Texas. GEEG is a federally funded, incentive pay program that awarded non-competitive grants, ranging from $60,000 to $220,000 each year for three years, to 99 Texas public schools. Schools participating in GEEG took advantage of the considerable discretion granted to them by the Texas Education Agency to design incentive plans exhibiting an array of differences on several key plan variables. This study explores the following research questions: (1) How did schools propose to distribute awards to teachers and how were those awards actually distributed in practice? (2) What is the relationship between teacher characteristics and the dollar amounts awarded to teachers in the GEEG plans? (3) What are the determinants of GEEG plan characteristics and the distribution of awards? (Contains 4 figures, 5 tables and 38 endnotes.) [This paper was prepared for "Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12]Education" in Nashville, Tennessee on February 28, 2008.]

In U.S. K-12 public education, incentive pay for educators remains firmly fixed as a high-interest policy topic and has recently become a popular reform initiative in many school systems. The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), created in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, is at the forefront of this policy movement and has provided hundreds of millions of federal dollars for the implementation of incentive pay systems for teachers and principals. This paper examines the incentive pay plans implemented under the TIF program as of the 2009-10 school year, a reasonable starting point to understanding how federal dollars are being used to modify systems for compensating educators. Primarily drawing upon survey findings, researchers address the following questions: (a) What are the overall objectives of TIF plans? (b) How do sites determine bonus award eligibility? and (c) How are bonus awards distributed and to whom? Overall, TIF plans focus on rewarding educators' performance in addition to recruiting and retaining educators in hard-to-staff positions. Most plans are designed in ways that limit excessive competition between educators, but they differ considerably in the actual dollar amount of bonus awards offered to educators. As the TIF program is set to receive $600 million dollars this year through federal appropriations and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the findings from this report are particularly relevant and will allow policymakers and practitioners alike to learn more about how school systems are modifying educator compensation and what those choices might ultimately mean for teaching and learning within the nation's public schools. Appendices include: (1) Definition of TIF Plan Design Features; (2) TIF Design Feature Survey Instrument; (3) List of TIF Program Sites; and (4) TIF Plan Design Features, Frequencies, and Descriptive Statistics. (Contains 2 figures, 5 tables, and 16 footnotes.)

There is significant and growing interest in teacher pay reform as a number of states and localities have begun experimenting with departures from the single salary schedule--a pay system employed in most school districts, which links teacher pay solely to degree and experience level (Chait, 2007; Goldhaber, 2009; Podgursky and Springer, 2007). Denver's Professional Compensation System for Teachers (ProComp) represents what is arguably the nation's most high-profile example of strategic pay reform. ProComp's origins date back to 1999 when Denver Public Schools (DPS), with the local teachers union's cooperation, initiated a pilot program meant to increase student achievement and attract and retain highly effective teachers. The program gained support as a pilot, and in 2004, union members ratified a proposal for a more comprehensive program which became ProComp. In order to assess whether ProComp has succeeded in increasing student achievement, the authors explore three primary questions: (1) Is there a ProComp "system effect"? Is student achievement higher in years after the implementation of ProComp?; (2) How effective are teachers who choose to opt in to ProComp, compared to teachers who choose not to opt in?; and (3) How does the allocation of rewards in the ProComp system correspond to teacher effectiveness? The authors' findings document significant student learning gains in DPS across grades and subjects. The source of those gains, however, are not altogether clear as there is not a consistent pattern across grade level and subject: in some cases the gains appear primarily amongst students with ProComp teachers, while in other cases non-ProComp teachers are found to be more effective. Though puzzling, these findings are not inconsistent with research on other well-known interventions that include elements similar to ProComp. Two other results that have potentially far-reaching policy implications are clearer. The first is that "ProComp effects" are not always concentrated solely amongst teachers enrolled in ProComp. The second is that some of the ProComp awards do successfully target teacher effectiveness. However, several of the ProComp bonuses appear unrelated to either current or future teacher value-added measurements. Whether this is good or bad is clearly a normative question as some might argue that these awards are rewarding aspects of classroom instruction not strongly associated with students' test achievement. (Contains 5 figures, 6 tables, and 56 footnotes.)

Pay for performance is a popular public education reform, and millions of dollars are currently being targeted for pay for performance programs. These reforms are popular because economic and management theories suggest that well-designed incentive pay programs could improve teacher effectiveness. There is little evidence about the characteristics of a well-designed incentive pay plan for teachers, however. This study takes advantage of a recent natural experiment in Texas to explore the optimal design of teacher incentive plans. We find that when given the opportunity, teachers design relatively weak incentive pay plans. In turn, those relatively weak incentives do not appear to have induced any significant changes in teacher productivity, although they did have a significant impact on teacher turnover. As such, our evidence suggests that the types of incentives that appeal to teachers (and their unions) may not be optimal from the employer perspective. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures and 20 footnotes.)

In this paper we examine the research literature on teacher performance pay. Evidence clearly suggests an upsurge of interest in many states and school districts; however, expanded use of performance pay has been controversial. We briefly review the history of teacher pay policy in the U.S. and earlier cycles of interest in merit or performance-based pay. We review various critiques of its use in K-12 education and several strands of empirical research that are useful in considering its likely impact. The direct evaluation literature on incentive plans is slender, focused on short-run motivational effects, and highly diverse in terms of methodology, targeted populations, and programs evaluated. Nonetheless, it is fairly consistent in finding positive program effects, although it is not at present sufficiently robust to prescribe how systems should be designed--for example, optimal size of bonuses, mix of individual versus group incentives. It is sufficiently promising to support more extensive field trials and policy experiments in combination with careful follow-up evaluations. Since a growing body of research finds substantial variation in teacher effectiveness as measured by student achievement gains, future evaluations need to pay particular attention to the effect of these programs on the composition of the teaching workforce. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 21 footnotes.)

This paper examines the process of rewarding college faculty for professional service, and is based on data from an American Association for Higher Education forum on faculty roles and rewards, as well numerous college and university promotion and tenure documents and faculty handbooks. These data were examined in relationship to current research and literature on faculty professional service. Results uncovered best practices in only 26 institutions (which are referenced in the paper). Sections of the paper present a history of faculty professional service in higher education; discuss rewarding faculty professional service through the promotion and tenure system; define faculty professional service; review ways to document faculty professional service; list primary and secondary criteria for assessing the quality and scholarship of faculty professional services; define two groups who can be appropriately used to evaluate faculty professional service (clients/community leaders/peers and faculty/committee members); and discuss alternative ways of rewarding faculty professional service. An annotated list of 27 faculty promotion and tenure documents is appended. (Contains 16 references.) (SM)

Award-winning teacher-developed projects and courses in economics are described. The projects are designed for use in grades K-12. Descriptions indicate grade level, project background, time allotment, objectives, activities, and evaluation. Chapter 1 suggests ways to teach economic concepts in grades K-3. The projects included a year-long study of two agricultural products of Arkansas--chickens and rice--and the effect these two products have on students' daily lives, teaching economics through an Easter theme, a unit about money, and a third-grade lesson on common property resources. In the projects described in the second chapter, students in grades 4-6 study about productive resources from prehistoric to modern times, international trade, and interdependence, and create their own country. The junior high projects of the third chapter deal with lifestyles, world trade, and a class developed money system. Projects for the senior-high level in chapter 4 focus on capitalism and entrepreneurs and involve students in reading utopian literature. The concluding chapter describes projects that fit into what is called an "open category." Included are strategies for using economics in a media center, an economics curriculum guide, an application of the Program for Effective Teaching (PET) to a system-wide approach to teaching economics, and a description of classroom materials developed to teach about the economics of the American food system. (RM)

The publication outlines 19 award winning economic education projects for use on levels K through college. The projects have been judged original and interesting to students and have met contest criteria by describing class situation, scope and sequence, goals, motivational devices, teaching techniques, samples of student work, culmination activities, and evaluation techniques. The report is presented in five chapters. In chapter I, four projects for grades K-3 are described. Activities include parents' show and tell, writing checks, opening savings accounts, producing and selling products, and collecting data on inflation. The four projects in chapter II, for use in grades 4-6, involve the students in group investigation of community change, observation of building construction, simulations, and shopkeeping. Chapter III presents activities for junior high school, including mathematics, community simulation, and career awareness games and production of goods from polyester resin. Activities described in chapter IV for high school students include a mini-unit on sports and economics, seminars on economic concepts, market simulation, and a toy survey for a consumer council. College level activities, presented in chapter V, include relating economics to art history, personal interests, and grades. (Author/DB)

Twenty award winning, teacher-developed programs, projects, courses, and materials in economic education are presented. These case study projects are designed to be used with kindergarten through college students. The case studies are organized by grade level into five chapters. Chapter I suggests ways to teach economic concepts to educable mentally handicapped children in grades K-3 and provides curriculum materials for typical first and second grade children on scarcity, economic disadvantagement of blacks in the United States, and the role of the government in meeting consumer demands. Chapter II focuses on community issues and economic awareness for grades four through six. Chapter III offers materials on money, banking, the Federal Reserve System, small business economics, restaurant management, and the relationship between economics and values for use in grades seven to nine. A general economics program for teenage mentally handicapped students is also outlined in this chapter. Chapter IV contains descriptions of four programs for high school students. Topics are the world marketplace, values in decision making, analytical economics for intellectually gifted students, and a self-contained mini-economy. The final chapter offers four models for curriculum development on the college level. An appendix at the end of each chapter provides brief overviews of additional courses and programs in economic education. For each case study, information is presented on grade level, project background, student ability, objectives, activities, and evaluation. (Author/DB)

Designed for use in grades K-12, award winning teacher-developed projects and courses in economics are described. Descriptions indicate grade level, project background, time allotment, objectives, activities, and evaluation. Arranged into 5 chapters, chapter 1 suggests ways to teach economic concepts to grades K-3. Projects include a lesson on specialization and technology, economics through literature and song, the economic impact of weather, and using stories such as the "Elves and the Shoemaker" to present basic economic principles. Chapter 2, for grades 4-6, investigates economic aspects of education, the economic impact of pets on our society, and the interrelationships between the ocean, ecology, and development of natural resources. Chapter 3 presents ideas for learning activities in the junior high social studies curriculum, a simulation game relating economic concepts to Alaska, a unit on the fluctuating economy of the 1920's and 1930's, and games to teach the economics of colonial America. Chapter 4, projects for senior high school students, includes tips for teaching economic concepts in Latin class, a minicourse entitled "The Westward Movement: The Cost of a New Beginning," interdisciplinary approaches to teaching economics, and an economic parable designed to foster economic reasoning. The concluding chapter discusses buying a home, the relationship between changes and economics, and a project designed to provide economic education for inner city parents. (LH)