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There is continued concern over the inequitable distribution of highly experienced and effective teachers among historically marginalized student populations. Using longitudinal data from Tennessee, this study assesses whether students of racially/ethnically minoritized and economically disadvantaged backgrounds have unequal exposure to teachers based on alternate definitions of teaching quality. We find minoritized and economically disadvantaged students are 5 to 15 percentage points less likely to be exposed to high-quality teachers. These teacher quality gaps tend to be the largest in urban school contexts. Moreover, school-level exposure gaps tend to be associated with several school, district, and neighborhood factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent data show rising suicidality among high school girls. We posit this increase may be related to an overlooked factor: more girls identifying as LGBQ. Using four cohorts of national Youth Risk Behavior Survey data (N = 22,562 females, N = 22,130 males), we found that LGBQ identification among females rose from 15% in 2015 to 34% in 2021. LGBQ females consistently reported higher suicidality, although rates remained stable within both LGBQ and heterosexual groups. The rise in females' suicidality may stem from social pressures faced by LGBQ youth. Male suicidality and LGBQ identification showed smaller changes. More support for LGBQ students is essential to address this trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heightened concerns about the health of the teaching profession highlight the importance of studying the early teacher pipeline. This exploratory, descriptive article examines preservice teachers' expressed motivation for pursuing a teaching career. Using data from a large teacher education program in Texas, we use a natural language processing algorithm to categorize into topical groups roughly 2,800 essay responses to the prompt, "Explain why you decided to become a teacher." We identify 10 topics that largely reflect altruistic and intrinsic (although not extrinsic) reasons for teaching. The frequency of topics varied substantially by preservice teacher gender, race/ethnicity, and certification area. Intrinsic enjoyment of teaching and experiences with adversity predicted higher clinical teaching performance and lower attrition as a full-time teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less-challenging, or less-costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "push out" low-achieving, more-challenging, or more-costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created multiple measures to examine whether there is evidence consistent with the claims of voucher-participating private schools cream skimming the best students from public schools or pushing out voucher-receiving students. We do not find evidence consistent with the claim of cream skimming. However, we find evidence consistent with the claim of private schools pushing out the lowest-achieving voucher students. This is the first study to examine these two issues within a statewide private school voucher program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public school enrollment dramatically decreased during the pandemic, but the patterns of decline and student movement across schools are not yet well understood. Using statewide student-level data from Virginia, we find pre-K–12 enrollment dropped by 4% between fall 2019 and the first post-pandemic fall of 2020. The changes were the largest in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten and explained mostly by decreases in new enrollees, though exits also increased. K–12 enrollment declines were the largest among White and economically-advantaged students (but largest for Black and economically-disadvantaged pre-kindergartners). We also observe a decline in school transfers (both within and between districts), concentrated among Black and economically-disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. Findings have implications for equity, school funding, and student well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article used a rich longitudinal data set from four school districts in California to study absenteeism patterns among students classified as an English learner (EL). We looked at absence patterns overall and disaggregated by EL classification, grade level, and pre/post COVID-19. When their demographic and school-level factors are considered, ELs have fewer absences and are less likely to be chronically absent than non-EL students. This finding is evident for all EL classified groups, although the differences in absenteeism for long-term EL (LTEL) and newcomer EL students are markedly smaller than for other EL subgroups. The negative absenteeism patterns for ELs shifted after the COVID-19 pandemic. EL-classified students experienced higher absenteeism rates during the pandemic even when holding other factors constant. This rising absenteeism trend is most evident for current ELs and LTELs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present data from the Schools and Staffing Survey and the National Teacher and Principal Survey to document the prevalence of instructional coaching programs (ICPs) and consider how ICPs are distributed by school level, urbanicity, new teachers in a school, student enrollment, school poverty levels, student achievement levels, and state. We show that ICPs are most common in elementary schools, schools located in cities, schools with larger proportions of new teachers, larger schools, schools enrolling larger fractions of economically disadvantaged students, and schools with lower student achievement levels. Additionally, more affluent and higher achieving schools experienced the sharpest increase in ICPs over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationally, more than 75% of individuals who are credentialed to teach are prepared in traditional college- or university-based teacher education programs (TEPs). But the college and employment pathways that prospective teachers take to TEP enrollment and completion have not been comprehensively examined. A better understanding of how credentialed individuals find their way into TEPs helps us understand the sources of new teacher supply early in the prospective teacher pipeline. With that in mind, we analyze pathways into and through TEPs using historical postsecondary and unemployment insurance data from Washington State. We find that the pathways are quite varied, with around 40% of bachelor's-level TEP completers spending at least some time in community colleges and fewer than 40% enrolling and finishing at the same university directly after high school. Pathways to master's TEP completion are even more varied, with almost half of the completers having prior employment experience. For researchers, this varied landscape raises important questions about the relationship between pathways, candidate persistence, and eventual job performance. For policymakers, the results suggest that efforts to recruit the next generation of teachers need to look beyond the pool of students already enrolled at a 4-year university to include students at 2-year colleges or in the labor force who might be interested in entering a TEP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research using school discipline and infraction data has contributed to public policy conversations by helping elucidate the effects of and disproportionate experience of school disciplinary outcomes. This research brief presents results from an analysis of the public availability of such data from state departments of education. Findings suggest that while public availability of discipline data has not changed significantly over the past decade, states are more likely to disaggregate such data by subgroups. Unfortunately, such data remain generally focused on a small number of exclusionary practices rather than nonpunitive or nonexclusionary alternatives. Infraction data are slightly less available than discipline data and significantly less likely to be disaggregated by subgroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community teachers, particularly those who are Black and Latinx, are assumed to improve retention and outcomes depending on retention in schools that serve low-income Black and Latinx students. Based on a critical quantitative analysis of data collected on the career trajectories and retention of hundreds of alternatively certified mathematics teachers, the study shows that community insiders exhibit significantly higher rates of retention in district schools than community outsiders and, in particular, those from elite colleges. Utilizing quantitative critical theory methodology, the study helps to move the field beyond race-neutral analyses of teachers' retention and careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief analyzes 4-year graduation rates among students ever classified as English learners (ever-ELs) and those never classified as English learners (never-ELs) at the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood income. We follow two cohorts of New York City students who entered ninth grade in 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 (N = 127,931). We find substantial variations in 4-year graduation among these subgroups, with differential predicted probabilities depending on the student's ever-EL status, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood income. These findings reveal important intersectional disparities in this diverse group of ELs—nuances that are lost when analyzing across a single social dimension and that push us to adopt an intersectional lens in quantitative research on ELs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We leverage log data from an educational app and two-way text message records from over 3,500 students during the summers of 2019 and 2020 and in-depth interviews in Spanish and English to identify patterns of family engagement with educational technology. Based on the type and timing of technology use, we identify several distinct profiles of engagement, which we group into two categories: independent users who engage with technology-based educational software independently and interaction-supported users who use two-way communications to support their engagement. We also find that as the demands of families from schools increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, Spanish-speaking families were significantly more likely than English-speaking families to engage with educational technology across all categories of families, particularly as interaction-supported users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between text-to-speech (TTS) usage and item-by-item performance in the 2017 eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math assessment, focusing on students with disabilities (SWDs), English language learners (ELLs), and their general education (GE) peers. Results indicate that all students use TTS more for longer and more difficult math items as well as for multiple-choice or short-response formats. Among SWDs and GE students, lower math proficiency and higher perceived time pressure are linked to higher TTS usage. Moreover, among GE students, factors such as male gender, minority status, lower math persistence, and higher math interest and effort during testing contribute to higher TTS usage. TTS usage is positively associated with item performance for SWDs and ELLs who received extended time accommodations but not for those who did not receive such accommodations or for general education students. The study suggests that the time constraints of speeded digital assessments may limit the potential benefits of TTS for SWDs and ELLs in math problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clearinghouses set standards of scientific quality to vet existing research to determine how "evidence-based" an intervention is. This paper examines 12 educational clearinghouses to describe their effectiveness criteria, to estimate how consistently they rate the same program, and to probe why their judgments differ. All the clearinghouses value random assignment, but they differ in how they treat its implementation, how they weight quasi-experiments, and how they value ancillary causal factors like independent replication and persisting effects. A total of 1359 programs were analyzed over 10 clearinghouses; 83% of them were assessed by a single clearinghouse and, of those rated by more than one, similar ratings were achieved for only about 30% of the programs. This high level of inconsistency seems to be mostly due to clearinghouses disagreeing about whether a high program rating requires effects that are replicated and/or temporally persisting. Clearinghouses exist to identify "evidence-based" programs, but the inconsistency in their recommendations of the same program suggests that identifying "evidence-based" interventions is still more of a policy aspiration than a reliable research practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent regarding the federal right to an abortion for people who can carry pregnancies. This case has substantial significance for the education field, directly affecting school- and college-age marginalized students who can carry pregnancies. In this essay, I argue that Dobbs and subsequent policies have created a significant need for educational research to inform courts, public policy, and practice to improve social and educational structural support for marginalized students who can carry pregnancies in a post- Dobbs era. This need is because Dobbs and subsequent policies have significantly diminished reproductive justice, and reproductive justice is intricately tied to marginalized students' ability to fully engage in their education. Timely educational research is critical to address the systemic inequities that Dobbs and related policies have exacerbated and reified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research substantially overstates the cost of retention under test-based promotion policies to both taxpayers and students who delay labor market entry because it omits two important factors. First, there is a delay between the intervention and the taxpayer's expenditure. Second, on average, the treatment leads to less than a full year of additional schooling. I provide formulas for calculating the cost of grade retention within a test-based promotion policy and illustrate using data from Florida. Retaining a third-grade student under Florida's policy was about 45% less costly to taxpayers and about 37% less costly to retained students than would be suggested by prior authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a comprehensive global snapshot of wealth-based inequalities in higher education attendance. We draw on data from 117 countries to describe cross-national patterns in higher education attendance rates, disaggregated by wealth quintile and country income group. We then calculate four different indicators to quantify the size of wealth-based inequality in higher education attendance and completion for each country. Our findings point to large wealth-based inequalities in higher education attendance cross-nationally, which are: substantially larger than inequalities in secondary completion, larger in low- and middle-income countries than high-income countries, and negatively associated with national wealth. The results serve as a foundation for future studies on how country-level factors and policies exacerbate or reduce wealth-based inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the student transportation options available to families affect which schools are accessible to them in a choice-based setting. The study has two parts. First, we compare commute times by foot, public transit, school bus, and car. We show that providing school bus service reduces commute times and improves access for families without cars, but access to a car fundamentally shapes families' options. Second, we explore the relationship between neighborhood-level measures of vehicle access and families' school requests and placements. Car access is strongly associated with school requests and placements even after accounting for neighborhood characteristics. We consider car access as a pathway by which wealth disparities produce educational disparities in settings that emphasize school choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Principals can affect several consequential schooling processes and outcomes. However, their effectiveness varies substantially and is distributed across schools inequitably, underscoring the importance of effective principal professional development (PPD), which begins by using needs assessments to inform PPD content. A researcher-practitioner partnership assessed principal needs via monthly teacher surveys about specific teacher evaluation skills. While internal consistencies were high, test-rest reliabilities were low, implying that reports regarding the quality of specific principal practices may fluctuate substantially over short periods, potentially hampering the design of effective PPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 7 years of administrative data from North Carolina public schools (NCPS), we track changes in teacher and principal attrition and mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic and assess how attrition is related to characteristics of educators and schools. We find that educator attrition and mobility increased sharply between Fall 2020 and Fall 2022. Data from the pandemic period indicate that educators of color and more effective educators have experienced larger increases in attrition than their White and less effective peers. Gaps in teacher attrition have narrowed between schools educating many versus few historically marginalized students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' sensemaking of student behavior determines whether students get in trouble and are formally disciplined. Status categories, such as race, can influence perceptions of student culpability, but the degree to which teachers' initial identification of student misbehavior exacerbates racial disproportionality in discipline receipt is unknown. This study provides the first systematic documentation of teachers' use of office discipline referrals (ODRs) in a large, diverse urban school district in California that specifies the identity of both the referred and referring individuals in all ODRs. We identify teachers exhibiting extensive referring behavior, or the top 5% referrers, based on the number of ODRs they make in a given year and evaluate their contributions to disciplinary disparities. We find that "top referrers" effectively double the racial gaps in ODRs for both Black-White and Hispanic-White comparisons. These gaps are mainly driven by higher numbers of ODRs issued for Black and Hispanic students due to interpersonal offences and defiance and also partially convert to racial gaps in suspensions. Both the level and racial compositions of the school sites where top referrers serve and their personal traits seem to explain some of their frequent referring behavior. Targeting supports and interventions to top referrers might afford an important opportunity to reduce racial disciplinary gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing calls to build equitable data infrastructures, the education field has yet to have a shared guideline around equitable education data management and stewardship. To address this gap, we propose one framework from the data governance literature: the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management principles complemented by the CARE (Collective benefits, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles. We argue that making education data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) is a matter of equity and central to equity-focused data reuse. We illustrate the importance of FAIR education data by synthesizing our research experience and literature at the intersection of data governance and equity-focused data use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How school districts measure homelessness among their students has implications for accountability and funding, as well as for supporting student success. Yet, measuring homelessness among high school students is challenging because students move in and out of experiencing it. Using administrative student-level data from a mid-sized public school district in the southern United States, we show that different commonly used procedures to measure which students are considered homeless can yield markedly different estimates of high school graduation rates for these students. This is largely because of differences in how districts classify students who experience homelessness but later become housed. To address the potentially negative effects of housing insecurity on academic achievement, it is important to first identify a common way to diagnose the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide novel evidence on the broader impacts of school choice systems by quantifying disparities in peer continuity from middle to high school in New York City. We find that Black and Hispanic students and those in high-poverty neighborhoods attend high school with a much smaller fraction of their middle school or neighborhood peers than their White, Asian, and low-poverty neighborhood counterparts. Disparities also emerge in peer isolation: 27% and 20% of Black and Hispanic students transitioned with no other student from their middle school, while only 7% to 8% of White and Asian students did. Group differences in choice similarity, which in part reflects systematic variation in the number of local school options, drive this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using unique statewide panel data from Tennessee, we describe instructional coach (IC) and teacher peer observer (TPO) distributions in terms of their teaching expertise and observable school and district characteristics. The evidence suggests ICs are more likely to work in districts with lower-performing teachers while working in schools with higher-performing teachers. District characteristics largely determine where TPOs work. We also find that ICs and TPOs possess relatively more teaching expertise than classroom teachers and that these positive differences grow in magnitude as the concentration of economically disadvantaged students in a school rises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of English Learner (EL) status on subsequent Special Education (SPED) placement. Through a research-practice partnership, we link student demographic data and initial English proficiency assessment data across seven cohorts of test takers and observe EL and SPED programmatic participation for these students over 7 years. Our regression discontinuity (RD) estimates at the English proficiency margin consistently differ substantively from positive associations generated through regression analyses. RD evidence indicates that EL status had no effect on SPED placement at the English proficiency threshold. Grade-by-grade and subgroup RD analyses at this margin suggest that ELs were modestly underidentified for SPED during Grade 5 and that ELs whose primary language was Spanish were underidentified for SPED. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philanthropic initiatives incorporating prescriptive practices have become prominent in K–12 education. This study provides evidence on the reach, character, and impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a controversial initiative designed to transform district leadership. A novel data set on Broad trainees linked to data on large districts over 20 years shows that Broad superintendents have had extensive reach, serving nearly 3 million students at their peak, and that, for districts that hired Broad trainees, Broad superintendents were 40% more likely to be Black than non-Broad superintendents, although they had significantly shorter tenures. Estimates provide evidence that Broad-trained leaders had little effect on several district outcomes including enrollment, spending, and student completion. However, they initiated a trend toward increased charter school enrollment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on teacher churn has produced conflicting conclusions as to its impact on students and teachers. We bring clarity to this work by combining and expanding on analytical approaches used in earlier research to determine how and when different types of churn (i.e., grade, school) impact teacher effectiveness and attendance. Using data from the Los Angeles Unified School District, our results suggest differences based on analytical approach but ultimately show that changing schools and grades may be less of an issue than previously reported. In addition, in the case of school churn, a beneficial match in their new school sites may matter more for teacher outcomes than potential disruptive effects of churn. We conclude with implications for policy and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that a national superintendent dataset has never existed, claims about superintendent turnover and gender gaps have traditionally been based on conjecture or data from a single year and small sample of superintendents. Utilizing a new dataset of all K–12 public school district superintendents in the United States across four school years, this study explores how the superintendent gender gap and turnover have changed over time and across states and district types. Analyses reveal that superintendent turnover has increased, particularly among men, and the superintendent gender gap has marginally narrowed. Although men are increasingly turning over, women are seldom filling those positions—a necessity if the superintendent gender gap is to narrow. State and district analyses are presented, as well as discussion of the implications of the findings and the power of a longitudinal superintendent dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF I) in March 2020 with over $6 billion allocated for emergency financial aid. In this paper, we utilize the administrative burden framework to analyze HEERF I implementation for a stratified random sample of colleges, focusing on the implications for equity. We find that disbursement policies varied along two dimensions: (1) whether they imposed burdens on students by requiring applications and proof of hardship and (2) whether they targeted needy students and varied the amount of aid according to need. When we examine sectoral differences, we find that private for-profit colleges were more likely to place higher burden on students, whereas public and minority-serving institutions were more likely to reduce burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As children with refugee backgrounds continue to enroll in schools worldwide, attention to their educational needs and experiences has increased. In this study, we analyze the extent that schools and classrooms provide refugee students with equitable educational opportunities compared to students who are not refugees, and whether their teachers feel prepared for and engaged in culturally responsive instructional practices. Using survey data on 130,803 teachers and 8,054 schools sampled from 41 predominantly distant resettlement host countries in the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey, we find lower levels of resources, safety, and social inclusion for refugee students but higher levels of preparation and instructional practices in multicultural education among their teachers. The results have policy implications for supporting students with refugee backgrounds in different school contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unprecedented challenges of teaching during COVID-19 prompted fears of a mass exodus from the profession. We examine the extent to which these fears were realized using administrative records of Massachusetts teachers between 2015–2016 and 2021–2022. Relative to prepandemic levels, average turnover rates were similar going into the fall of 2020 but increased by 17% (from 15.0% to 17.5%) going into the fall of 2021. The fall 2021 increases were particularly high among newly hired teachers (31% increase) but were lower among Black and Hispanic/Latinx teachers (5% increases among both groups). Gaps in turnover rates between schools serving higher and lower concentrations of economically disadvantaged students narrowed during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The same holds true for gaps in turnover between schools serving higher and lower shares of Black and Hispanic/Latinx students. Together, these findings highlight important differences in teachers' responses to the pandemic across subgroups and the need to improve early-career retention to ensure long-term stability within the teacher workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High school Career and Technical Education (CTE) has received increased attention from policymakers and researchers in recent years. This study fills a needed gap in the growing research base by examining heterogeneity within the wide range of programs falling under the broad moniker of CTE, highlighting the need for nuance in research and policy conversations that often consider CTE as monolithic. Using student-level course-taking records, unemployment insurance, and National Student Clearinghouse data, we examine outcomes including earnings, postsecondary education, and poverty avoidance. We find substantial differences for students in fields as diverse as health care, Information Technology (IT), and construction. We also highlight heterogeneity for student populations historically overrepresented in CTE, and we find large differences in outcomes for CTE students, particularly by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-related financial market decline and economic recession have raised new concerns regarding the financial sustainability of retirement plans for state and local government employees, the largest group of whom is public school teachers. Using data from the Public Plans Database and the National Income and Product Accounts, I analyze teacher pension plans over the 2001–2019 period, seeking to answer questions regarding teacher pensions' funded status, investment decisions and returns, adequacy of contributions, and generosity of benefits. These data show that teacher pension funding peaked at the beginning of the 2001–2019 period due to the tech bubble's inflation of asset values, but then it declined thereafter due to investment returns that significantly underperformed assumptions, failures by sponsoring governments to consistently make full contributions, and increases in the generosity of pension benefits. School districts will face substantial funding challenges in the post-COVID period, as investment losses are factored into contribution rates, government revenues available to make contributions shrink, and education funding from state governments comes under pressure. I outline several policy alternatives that policymakers may consider, but none would make restoring teacher pensions to full funding a painless process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much do teachers value compensation deferred for retirement (CDR)? This question is important because the vast majority of public school teachers are covered by defined benefit pension plans that "backload" a large share of compensation to retirement relative to the compensation structure in the private sector, and there is scant evidence about whether pension structures are consistent with teacher preferences for current compensation versus CDR. This study examines a unique setting in Washington State, where teachers are enrolled in a hybrid pension system that has both defined benefit and defined contribution components. We exploit the fact that teachers have choices over their defined contribution rate to infer their revealed preferences for current versus CDR. We find that teachers on average contribute 7.23% of salary income toward retirement; 62% in fact elect to contribute more than the minimally required contribution of 5%. This suggests that teachers value CDR far more than suggested by prior evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are teacher pension benefits funded? Under traditional plans, the full cost of career teachers' benefits far exceeds the contributions designated for them. The gap between the two has three pieces, which may (with some license) be mnemonically tagged the three R's of pension funding: redistribution, return, and risk. First, some contributions made for the benefits of short-term teachers are redistributed to fund the benefits of career teachers. Second, pension plans assume rosy returns on their investments, which push costs onto future teachers and taxpayers. Finally, the risk inherent in providing guaranteed pensions carries other costs, tangible and intangible, notably including the nontrivial risk of insolvency, which would dramatically raise mandated contributions and endanger future teacher benefits. I quantify these three components of the gap between benefits and contributions using the same metric as annual contributions. Illustrating with the California plan, I find the full cost of a career teacher's annual accumulation of benefits can be as high as 46.6% of earnings, nearly triple the corresponding contributions of 17.5%. To understand this gap, which fiscally affects all areas of education policy, researchers and practitioners may find it helpful to think of the three R's of pension funding: redistribution, return, and risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this paper we investigate school district staffing challenges during the 2021–22 school year, the second school year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Research Methods/Approach: We use novel data from Washington state collected by scraping websites for job postings during the 2021–22 school year; the districts represented in the study serve more than 98% of students in the state. We analyze these data using descriptive and regression analyses. Findings: There was considerable variation in staffing challenges across position types and throughout the year with postings per student tending to be higher in rural districts and districts serving larger populations of disadvantaged students. In Fall 2021, when postings likely signal vacancies at the outset of the 2021–22 school year, the data suggest that districts faced considerable challenges filling paraeducator and, to a lesser extent, teaching positions at the beginning of the school year. In the case of teachers, there is also heterogeneity in the postings per FTE across different teacher content areas. For instance, there are far more postings per FTE for special education teacher positions than elementary education positions. In Spring and Summer 2022, when postings likely signal anticipated staffing needs for the 2022–23 school year, districts with growing enrollments and that received more ESSER funding were more likely to have more postings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When beginning readers read aloud, the teacher’s feedback affects their reader identities. Teacher’s feedback may also imprint a strong model of what reading is and what proficient readers do. This systematic review investigates the characteristics of teachers’ feedback on elementary students’ reading and furthers its potential to support students’ agency in learning to read. A total of 52 empirical studies in K–5 settings were identified and analyzed. Findings suggest clear associations between how feedback was presented and what aspects of reading were targeted: typically, either explicit feedback on decoding or implicit feedback on meaning. Further, support for student agency was more strongly associated with implicit feedback practices. Finally, two groups of students—struggling readers and L2 learners—tended to receive feedback that does not promote agency. The review concludes by discussing the potential of feedback practices to support students in becoming proficient and independent readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee and asylum-seeking youth of color from African and Middle Eastern countries contend with racist-ableist structures in host-nation schools, primarily through newcomer supports offered to them. Considering their unique migratory experiences, this comprehensive systematic literature review explored how youth of color from Africa and the Middle East are supported in host-nation schools already entrenched in systemic racism and ableism. This review advanced precarious citizenship as a framework to explain student experiences. The findings showed how segregation and exclusion, ableist determinations of civic fitness, and assimilationist imperatives introduced precarity and foreclosed educational opportunities. Implications for research and practice are discussed, emphasizing the importance of disrupting racism and ableism in supporting newcomer youth of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many teachers are dissatisfied with their jobs, struggle with feeling effective at work, experience high levels of stress and burnout, and report higher levels of depressive symptoms than the average adult. Moreover, growing evidence shows that teachers’ professional experiences are racialized, resulting in well-being disparities between White teachers and Teachers of Color (TOC). In this article, we use a novel AI-assisted tool to review existing research on interventions (N = 89) geared to improve teacher well-being, with a specific focus on whether and to what extent researchers acknowledge or discuss the racialized nature of teachers’ professional experiences. Grounded in a theory of schools as racialized organizations, we (a) review the most common intervention strategies for improving teacher well-being and (b) document the extent to which teacher well-being interventions address race or racism in their designs and analyses. Consistent with past work, we find that the vast majority of interventions to improve teacher well-being aim to equip teachers with psychological tools (mindfulness, coping strategies, compassion training) to navigate their professional experiences. However, only half of the studies reviewed here report the racial demographics of their samples, and only four consider how their interventions might differentially impact TOC versus White teachers. We discuss the reasons for and implications of this omission from the teacher well-being literature and provide recommendations for researchers to contend with the racialized nature of teacher well-being in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education research community, both within the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and beyond, could and should play a critical role in fundamentally transforming educational institutions and systems. Given its complexity, transformative change in education is best undertaken as a collective endeavor. Yet for researchers to be a valuable resource in educational transformation, we will need to bridge knowledge across subfields that currently have limited interaction. Through two illustrative examples, we demonstrate the need to link knowledge on educational change with knowledge on how to create more equitable, anti-racist, and decolonized spaces for formal and informal learning. While operating in different spaces and initiated at different entry points, the two change efforts exemplify a common set of commitments and actionable pathways for achieving transformational change. This article is a call to action for researchers to join together in supporting educational transformation that fundamentally challenges the inequitable arrangements persisting in educational organizations characterized by systemic racism and colonialism. Bridging knowledge bases and being accountable to serve and support communities and their intersectional identities are essential to making deep, scalable changes in education that promote social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little is known about the complaint investigation process in the Office for Civil Rights, despite its scope and reach. We examine key parameters (number and types of complaints received, types of resolutions, average time of resolution) of civil rights complaints nationwide over a 20-year period (1999–2019). We find that 10%–40% of all districts receive at least one discrimination-related complaint each year. We also find that complaints are filed at significantly higher rates in large districts and districts with a high percentage of Black students, even after controlling for other structural factors, such as average socioeconomic status and locale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of federal support leaves undocumented students reliant on state policies to financially support their postsecondary education. We descriptively examine the postsecondary trajectories of tens of thousands of undocumented students newly eligible for California's state-aid program, using detailed application data to compare them to similar peers. In this context, undocumented students who apply and are eligible for the program use grant aid to attend college at rates similar to their peers. Undocumented students remain more likely to enroll in a community college rather than attend a broad-access 4-year college and have higher exit rates from 2-year colleges. However, undocumented students are equally likely to attend the more selective University of California system and across 4-year public colleges have persistence rates similar to their peers, showing that those who do attend 4-year colleges perform well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal accountability policy mandates that states administer standardized tests beginning in third grade. In turn, third-grade test scores are often viewed as a key indicator in policy and practice. Yet literacy struggles begin well before third grade, as do racial and socioeconomic disparities in children's literacy skills. Kindergarten readiness assessments provide a unique opportunity to better understand the emergence of literacy disparities. We use unique kindergarten literacy data from nearly every school division in Virginia to document the relationship between children's early literacy skills and their later reading proficiency. When comparing children with similar literacy skills at kindergarten entry, we find significant racial and socioeconomic differences in the likelihood that a child will be proficient on their third-grade reading assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether one of the most popular observation systems in teacher evaluation—the Framework for Teaching (FFT)—captures the range of instructional skills teachers need to be effective. We focus on the case of special educators, who are likely to use instructional approaches that, although supported by research, are de-emphasized in common observation systems. Drawing on 206 lessons from 51 teachers, we compare FFT scores to an observation system from special education. We find that FFT's psychometric properties are consistent with previous studies, but the system is limited in assessing the quality of instructional practices used in special education. We discuss implications of these findings for two practical uses of observations—supporting teacher development and informing human capital decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent state policy efforts have focused on increasing attainment among adults with some college but no degree (SCND). Yet little is actually known about the SCND population. Using data from the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), we provide the first detailed profile on the academic, employment, and earnings trajectories of the SCND population and how these compare with VCCS graduates. We show that the share of SCND students who are academically ready to re-enroll and would benefit from doing so may be substantially lower than policy makers anticipate. Specifically, we estimate that few SCND students (approximately 3%) could fairly easily re-enroll in fields of study from which they could reasonably expect a sizable earnings premium from completing their degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 3 years, the advocacy organization Speech First has filed six lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of bias response teams on the grounds that they violate free speech. Bias response teams are university-wide committees that respond to reports of racially charged incidents on college campuses to promote institutional goals of inclusion. These lawsuits are significant because they have resulted in the dismantling of these committees. In this commentary, we bring attention to this renewed wave of legal attacks on racial diversity and inclusion policies on college campuses and its implications for race-focused policy, practice, and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using state-level data, we report special education (SPED) trends in Tennessee from 2009 to 2019 for students in Grades 3 to 8 by language groups—native English speaker (NES), English-proficient bilingual (EPB), and current English learner (Current EL)—and income status (eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch). The sample included 812,783 students from 28 districts that met the risk ratio threshold set by the state. Results revealed that none of the language groups were disproportionally (i.e., over) represented in SPED based on Tennessee's threshold. However, trends varied by income status, suggesting that exclusionary factors are potentially associated with rates of identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the rollout of a Statewide Dual-Credit (SDC) program intended to expand access to college-level courses during high school. We find that SDC increased early postsecondary course-taking among students in the middle of the achievement distribution, especially through courses in vocational subjects, without decreasing participation in Advanced Placement (AP). However, SDC was mostly offered by schools already providing courses in similar subject areas and was less frequently offered in small relative to large schools, thus doing little to ameliorate placed-based gaps in course-taking opportunities. Furthermore, a majority of students failed the end-of-course exams necessary to secure college credit, and those who passed closely resemble students who pass AP exams. Low SDC exam pass rates predict school-level discontinuation of SDC courses over and above a range of other factors that reflect student demand and staffing capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Principals are the second-largest school-based contributor to K–12 students' academic progress. However, there is little research evaluating whether efforts to develop principals' skills improve school effectiveness. We conducted randomized controlled trial studies of the impacts of a professional development program called the Executive Development Program (EDP) and of the incremental effects of coaching to help principals implement the EDP curriculum. We find that the EDP alone influenced principals' practices, but not student achievement, within 3 years. Coaching had a small positive effect on students' English Language Arts achievement, but no effect on math achievement or on principals' practices. Coaching had the largest effects in disadvantaged schools. We hypothesize that coaching enhanced the quality of implementation of recommended practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]