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While the United States leads the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation, the schools lag behind in preparing teachers and students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The extraordinary pace of technological change, and the potential for both opportunity and risk, may be unprecedented. What leaders in education and education policy do next matters. To help accelerate action in U.S. public education and develop a short-term roadmap for districts and other education leaders, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) brought together over 60 state and federal policymakers, edtech innovators, school system leaders, and advocates in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2024 to participate in the Think Forward: Learning with AI forum. This report reflects key learnings and conversations that emerged from CRPE's Think Forward convening, including: (1) how AI can enable needed changes in our schools; (2) how current conditions in the edtech market act as barriers to closing equity gaps; and (3) how policy and practice must adapt for lasting system change. It concludes with a short-term action plan developed by forum participants that provides an immediate path forward and outlines the roles wide-ranging stakeholders must play to address our shared challenges and opportunities.

In the face of financial, political, and capacity constraints, leaders within the Baltimore City Public School System and Chicago Public Schools are making progress toward closing post-pandemic gaps in student learning. The executive leadership teams serving Baltimore City Public School System and Chicago Public Schools are using several strategies to help their systems build back after the pandemic including: (1) standardizing key elements of instructional cores and adding instructional staff across their systems, while maintaining some school-level flexibility; (2) supporting existing staff to become teachers and "building the bench" of new principals, while also promoting school leaders and administrators from within; (3) spending federal pandemic-relief money Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) and other supplements, while hoping to avoid cutting into funding for instruction; (4) insulating schools as much as possible by taking the political hits themselves and making concessions to demanding stakeholders; and (5) confronting continued enrollment declines, limited central office capacity, constrained teacher labor markets, changes in school boards, shifting local interests, and uncertain state-level financial support. The strong leadership modeled in both districts remains at the heart of moving forward, despite the fact they are straining against their capacities. While there may be nuanced differences, all leaders in maxed-out districts will have to search for new options and forge alliances with new partners within school boards, unions, and state-level governments. This project is part of the American School District Panel (ASDP), a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

Concerns about the state of the teacher workforce are ever-increasing: the proportion of teachers who would recommend teaching continues to fall, as does interest in the profession among current students. Given these stark realities, many school systems are fundamentally redesigning teachers' roles in an attempt to make the job more attractive and sustainable, both to early-career teachers and seasoned veterans. These "strategic school staffing" solutions aim to improve both educator and student outcomes, based on convincing evidence that improved working conditions are critical both for teacher retention and for student success. This brief details early outcomes for educators in one specific strategic school staffing initiative: Next Education Workforce™ (NEW) team-based models. NEW models overhaul the standard "one teacher, one classroom" approach, which requires one teacher to be all things to all of their students. Instead, teachers in NEW models share a roster of students with a team of other educators with complementary skills and expertise. This brief contributes timely early-stage findings on Next Education Workforce team-based models as implemented in Mesa, Arizona. This study identifies several significant differences between teamed and non-teamed teachers in Mesa Public Schools (MPS), suggesting that NEW models are associated with improved educator outcomes.

While the United States leads the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation, schools lag behind in preparing teachers and students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To help accelerate action in U.S. public education and develop a short-term roadmap for districts and other education leaders, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) brought together over 60 state and federal policymakers, edtech innovators, school system leaders, and advocates in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2024 to participate in the Think Forward: Learning with AI forum. The setting for the Think Forward AI learning forum emphasized the importance of collective decision-making--and the consequences of getting those decisions wrong. This report reflects key learnings and conversations that emerged from CRPE's Think Forward convening, including: (1) how AI can enable needed changes in our schools; (2) how current conditions in the edtech market act as barriers to closing equity gaps; and (3) how policy and practice must adapt for lasting system change. It concludes with a short-term action plan developed by forum participants that provides an immediate path forward and outlines the roles wide-ranging stakeholders must play to address our shared challenges and opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of the social and economic lives of individuals, families, and communities. It also highlighted and deepened existing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. Education, too, was negatively impacted by the pandemic. Research has provided ample evidence about the challenges related to learning loss, access, and mental health among students in elementary and secondary schools. Students' achievement, attendance, and grade-level progression declined substantially more than expected during the pandemic (Fuller et al. 2023; Strunk et al. 2023). And students of color, low-income students, and those who attended high-poverty schools experienced substantially slower growth in their test scores during the pandemic as compared to their pre-COVID growth (Peters et al. 2023). This report builds on this emerging evidence, focusing on trends in Rhode Island and bringing granular, longitudinal, student-level administrative data to bear on the following questions: (1) How has postsecondary enrollment and persistence changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) Did students change the kinds of institutions in which they enrolled? (3) How do trends in enrollment and persistence compare across student subgroups (for instance, by race and socioeconomic status) and by institution type? and (4) How do students' high school experiences shape their postsecondary pathways?

Innovative staffing models are promising, but challenging to scale up. What does the work of leading strategic staffing involve, and what could make scaling up easier? This report digs deep into the many challenges system leaders face when scaling up innovative staffing solutions. These leaders are trying to address longstanding teacher shortages and retention challenges by rethinking everything, including who they hire and how they design the job, provide support, build trust, and uproot old assumptions about the teaching role. The early results are promising: these leaders report fewer vacancies, higher staff satisfaction, and improved student learning experiences. This work is "so hard, but so rewarding"--and it could be much more manageable if policymakers, technical assistance providers, and researchers stepped up to share the load.

The scorching, arid northeastern state of Ceará, Brazil has long been known for growing cashews and coconuts. Now, it's defied expectations by cultivating one of the world's best public elementary school systems, despite high rates of poverty. How Sobral transformed its public school system and attained near-universal literacy offers lessons for communities everywhere. With 85 elementary schools and almost 34,000 students, Sobral now dominates national assessments in reading and math--outscoring even affluent students in Saõ Paulo, Brazil's financial center. In 2000, only 48% of Sobral's second-graders were reading at grade level. By 2004, that figure had almost doubled to 92%, with an average of 95% in the years since (until 2020 pandemic school closures). Since 2014, the average Sobral fifth grader has scored not just "proficient" but "advanced" on Brazil's national proficiency test (National Basic Education Assessment System, or SAEB). Sobral's story is one of system-wide transformation. It's a tale of a community that, over many years, changed every aspect of its primary education system. It features a grand vision and bold political leadership. It speaks to the power of aligned instructional systems, deep investments in educators, and a culture of love, support, and high expectations. It's a multi-faceted story that demonstrates the possibility of achieving near-universal literacy, even in resource-constrained environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic and recovery period is a unique opportunity to understand contemporary issues in high school reform. Evidence has clearly demonstrated lingering COVID impacts on adolescent students that have deepened pre-existing inequities and worsened teen mental health. There's a natural desire to regain normalcy after the pandemic. But it's essential, and urgent, that researchers examine why that "normalcy" failed in the past to support every student's needs. They must identify effective, even new, ways to level the playing field for today's students, and for future generations. Research has shown that many high school educators and administrators experimented with new approaches during the pandemic. Can the lessons learned in this period contribute to more lasting, transformative shifts? Researchers studied a group of New England public high schools during the pandemic recovery period to explore this question and hear directly from students and adults about their experiences. This report presents a set of recommendations for educational leaders and policy makers at the state and local levels -- along with caregivers, employers, higher education, and other community partners -- to help schools overcome barriers and think more broadly about how best to prepare graduates for a variety of paths to success after high school.

In spring 2024, the authors surveyed 156 American School District Panel member districts about principal pipeline activities across seven domains -- leader standards, principal preparation, selective hiring and placement, on-the-job support and evaluation, principal supervision, leader tracking systems, and systems of support -- to estimate the share of U.S. public school districts engaged in such activities. Researchers also examined those activities by district enrollment size to investigate the hypothesis that the infrastructure to support the principal pipeline is mostly confined to large districts. This report is intended to support administrators of principal preparation programs, school district leaders, state department of education staff who oversee principal certification and leadership development, and education researchers who study school leadership.

Black Mothers Forum (BMF) was founded in 2016 to combat institutional racism, including disproportionate discipline, unrepresentative curricula, and racial bullying in Phoenix-area schools. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted public education, the organization launched a network of microschools as outposts of this mission. These microschools were able to start quickly, make frequent course corrections, and sustain their efforts after the pandemic, thanks in part to Arizona's growing ecosystem of diverse education options. The initial pandemic-era effort to launch these microschools was documented in a case study published by the Center on Reinventing Public Education in 2022. This followup brief revisits the initial case study with an eye toward the pedagogical tensions and questions of sustainability that it brought to light. This brief is based on in-person classroom observations, a new round of interviews with BMF microschool leaders and educators, and an analysis of Arizona's education policy landscape.

Across the country, school systems are struggling to implement effective, research-based literacy instruction and to help students recover from lost learning time during the pandemic. At the same time, school systems sit near pools of untapped talent--community members who have personally experienced the harm of inequitable school systems and now brim with passion for addressing systemic problems in public education. These are parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, many of whom were poorly served by public schools themselves, and are now watching a new generation struggle. The Oakland REACH's Literacy Liberator Model and Fellowship, a partnership with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and the literacy nonprofit FluentSeeds, identifies and recruits community members who have personally experienced the shortcomings of their local schools, then trains and supports them to deliver effective instruction. Drawing on interviews with REACH leaders, seven Literacy Liberator fellows, and other community leaders, as well as observations of fellowship training sessions and literacy tutors at work, this brief aims to document the design of the program and trainees' experiences, providing a roadmaps for similar efforts in other communities.

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.]

As school systems struggle to recover from years of disruption, new programs, policies, and nontraditional organizations that support innovation in the teaching role will need to grow to support all students' learning. But what is it like to teach in new ways? What are the advantages and drawbacks? What brought educators to these unconventional roles and what might help them stay? This report addresses these questions through interviews with teachers who are serving in unconventional roles. Key findings include: (1) Across different contexts and instructional approaches, educators liked these unconventional roles; (2) The appeal came from increased autonomy and deeper personal connections, which cultivated a sense of ownership and investment; (3) There were downsides: autonomy could be isolating, collaboration could be tricky to get right, and innovation often meant more responsibility and less guidance from leadership; and (4) Educators expressed uncertainty about the sustainability of their unconventional roles, and many did not see themselves staying in the role for more than a few years.

Recent state and national achievement exam results, as well as academic progress reports, have underscored how the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures had a large, negative impact on students' reading and math development. While a great deal is known about the test-based academic impacts of the pandemic such as test scores that provide valuable evidence, there are a range of non-test measures like attendance, engagement in school, student retention, course failure rates, degree completion, and enrollment in subsequent levels of education that also yield important insights about students' educational well-being. These measures matter in their own right and in how they affect longer-term outcomes like employment, earnings, and adult well-being. This consensus panel report reviewed the best available evidence to understand how the pandemic affected non-tested academic areas, and it offers recommendations for shaping a policy response.

In the year following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic-related school closures in March 2020, educators began to sound the alarm about increasing chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing at least 10 percent of school days (i.e., 18 days in a typical 180-day school year) for any reason, whether excused or unexcused. Data suggest that chronic absenteeism skyrocketed in the aftermath of pandemic-induced school closures. But despite rates improving modestly in the 2022-2023 school year, persistently high chronic absenteeism rates have left educators and policymakers across the United States wondering what they can do to get students back in school. To get the latest information on the ongoing problem of chronic absenteeism, the authors conducted a survey of school districts and interviewed leaders of districts who are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The findings estimate the proportion of districts with elevated levels of chronic absenteeism during the most recent school year (2023-2024), provide national prevalence estimates of the approaches that districts are employing to reduce absenteeism, and highlight perspectives from district leaders about why a greater share of children are missing school now than in the past. This report is intended for school district leaders, organizations focused on school attendance, and state policymakers.

In spring 2024, the authors surveyed 190 American School District Panel member districts about what interventions (e.g., tutoring, additional staff, additional instruction time) they were still using during the 2023-2024 school year to assist with students' learning recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic-related setbacks. Districts were also asked about their expected revenues in future school years and what cuts, if any, they plan to make because of the expiration of federal stimulus funds. This series is intended to provide brief analyses of educator survey results of immediate interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

While COVID-19 caused unimaginable disruptions to public education, we saw remarkable examples of innovation and commitment to supporting high school student success. In our New England landscape of learning research, we learned that the boundaries of what it means to "reinvent" high school stretched, and in some systems, the momentum for change accelerated. Students and teachers learned to work in new ways and reached new understandings about each other. Now, building off these lessons and in partnership with the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL), we are engaged in an in-depth look at the American Rescue Plan (ARP), post-pandemic recovery in New England high schools. Our research is designed to reveal whether and how federal dollars are being directed toward supporting a better adolescent experience, how high schools are innovating and adapting to advance equity, and what kinds of choices students are making about their futures after high school. The results from this investigation will equip school and system leaders, state policymakers, and advocates--in New England and beyond--to better understand and support pandemic-era innovations that connect to what students and families need and want from high school.

This project is part of the American School District Panel (ASDP), a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (CRPE). This report concludes research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. This report provides a possible explanation for why lackluster student test scores continue and why school systems struggle to implement and scale targeted student supports. Significant findings in this report include: (1) A crisis in the quality of classroom teaching is, leaders say, diverting time and resources away from targeted supports for students and toward improving classroom instruction; (2) Leaders report less day-to-day chaos, but unexpected challenges in staffing and teacher development have curtailed recovery efforts. As a result, their COVID recovery plans have been difficult, if not impossible, to carry out; (3) Plans for tutoring and other customized help have been undone by leaders' need to build (or rebuild) teachers' core skills; and (4) Millions of dollars and the best of intentions and efforts notwithstanding, leaders are struggling to overcome challenges to providing baseline services to students. [For the preceding report, see "Navigating Political Tensions over Schooling: Findings from the Fall 2022 American School District Panel Survey" (ED626297).]

The exact cause of teacher shortages is unknown. Some experts argue that shortages are localized, while others say that the lack of teachers is due to low unemployment and other factors. Regardless, school systems face big challenges with their teacher workforce, including finding enough teacher candidates and retaining the teachers they have, as well as filling specialized positions. These challenges require school systems to make changes to the role of the teacher. This brief identifies eight categories of strategies that school systems are using to reimagine their teacher workforce, then assesses the extent to which large and urban districts have adopted these strategies. Of the 100 large and urban school systems examined for this brief, 97 had strategies to address workforce challenges. But fewer than one in three of those districts were pursuing workforce strategies the authors would define as new or imaginative--and most focused on recruiting more candidates.

In the summer of 2022, the Center on Reinventing Public Education convened a panel of education and youth development experts to take stock of recent efforts to address students' mental health and well-being and to reestablish core elements of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools. The panel agreed that the pandemic's impact has been complex, but that there have been few dynamic and collaborative efforts to address it. While the experts recognized the tremendous demands placed on teachers to address students' academic as well as social and emotional needs, they noted that the kind of innovation they called for in 2021 (e.g., new kinds of learning environments, partnerships, and funding models for mental health and social skill development) had yet to materialize. The panelists arrived at three calls to action that reflect the challenges and opportunities young people are facing. Specifically, they call for policymakers and advocates to: (1) Embrace technological innovations that can improve student well-being while still honoring the fundamental need for human relationships; (2) Overcome turf wars and divisions; embrace "big tent" thinking for social and emotional development and well-being support; and (3) Build new, integrated monitoring and response systems to address the urgent needs of young people.

Over the past few years, leaders and educators at East Hartford High School in East Hartford, Connecticut, have sought out and tested ways to ensure that each of their 1,700 students have opportunities to form meaningful relationships with adults, engage in rigorous instruction, and receive tailored support. They have prioritized initiatives aimed at closing persistent opportunity and achievement gaps along the lines of race and socioeconomic status. In 2020, after the state of Connecticut issued guidance that allowed districts to reform grading practices to better accommodate student needs during the pandemic and remote instruction, East Hartford closely examined its own grading policies. They found that their traditional approach, similar to what many schools across the country use, disproportionately favored students with greater access to resources, demotivated students who performed poorly on early-semester assignments, and was susceptible to bias. The high school launched "Grading for Equity," an initiative aimed at more accurately assessing students' knowledge while reducing bias and supporting student motivation. This case study describes the initiative's implementation, including educators' focus on maintaining high standards and ensuring students graduate career- and college-ready. It concludes with important questions for school leaders and design teams who seek to test out innovative approaches to grading.

Nowell Academy in Providence, Rhode Island primarily serves pregnant and parenting, overaged, and undercredited high school students, 96% of whom have had past difficulties with consistent attendance. Nowell provides incentives for students to come to school by offering daycare services, learning experiences that connect curriculum to the real world, and resources like gas cards and gift cards for school supplies. Administrators noted they have "moved mountains'' in attendance, with rates rising to roughly 68% in recent school years. However, the extensive challenges young adults face outside of the classroom continue to make consistent attendance difficult, and because average attendance is a factor in Rhode Island's school performance ratings, Nowell is often compared to higher state averages for high school attendance. This has led some staff to want to continue working to raise attendance rates, both for accountability purposes and because of the importance of students engaging steadily in learning. Other staff feel it's more important to continue prioritizing relationship-building and engaging, real-world learning, since purely targeting improvements in attendance may not best serve the school's unique population. This case concludes with discussion questions for high school leaders working to boost students' engagement and ownership of their educational journeys, in addition to increasing attendance.

Nokomis Regional High School, which draws nearly 600 students from eight different towns in rural Maine, has spent 10 years transforming its instructional model to immerse students in meaningful learning experiences that relate to their interests and passions. Project-based learning, interdisciplinary courses, and career exploration units are designed to help students explore various options and feel secure about their postsecondary choices. As students near graduation in this rural community, some plan to enroll in college, while others envision entering the trades or starting a job. Staff at Nokomis want students to achieve success on their own terms, which means challenging the predominantly college-oriented attitude that persists in high school practice and policy. But many teachers and administrators are still grappling with how to ensure that students choosing different pathways--some involving college, some not (or not yet)--will have an equal shot at long-term success and stability relative to their peers. Some staff think the school should more assertively push students toward college and career options beyond the local rural community. This case wrestles with how high schools can expand students' postsecondary horizons while remaining responsive to their values and interests--especially if those values differ significantly from those of the adults who support them. [For the corresponding Case Studies in High School Redesign, see ED626304 and ED626305.]

Between 2015 and 2019, Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts cut its dropout rate nearly in half and increased its graduation rate by 10 percentage points, with notable gains among historically marginalized student groups. The district cites Opportunity Academy (OA), an alternative education program within the district's high school, as a key driver of these improvements. OA surrounds students with supportive relationships and provides multiple pathways to graduation, including a competency-based pathway in which students earn credits through flexible learning experiences inside and outside traditional classrooms. But for OA's design team, getting students to graduate isn't enough. Real success, the principal said, means students have "the ability to live a choice-filled postsecondary life." This case wrestles with what's needed to achieve this higher bar for students who often just want to get high school over with, but whose success beyond the K-12 system depends on life skills, supportive relationships, and concrete postsecondary plans in addition to a diploma. The case concludes with key questions for high school leaders and design teams in both traditional and alternative education. [For the corresponding Case Studies in High School Redesign, see ED626303 and ED626304.]

Maloney High School, in Meriden, CT, has made significant strides in increasing underrepresented students' access to challenging courses, with content ranging from college preparation to career-oriented learning. Creative student-and-family-centered strategies, which incorporate quantitative data and individual counseling, have increased awareness of these courses and spurred dramatic enrollment increases among all learners, especially among Black and Latinx/Hispanic students and English Language Learners. Meriden district and school leaders know that equitable access to advanced courses does not always result in equitable outcomes from them. The team is now focused on ensuring that underrepresented students enrolling in these courses have the support to complete and excel in them. This case describes the school's current outreach and support strategies and concludes with important questions for school leaders and design teams seeking to address similar challenges. [For the corresponding Case Studies in High School Redesign, see ED626303 and ED626305.]

Public schooling has always been politically fraught, but current disagreements over issues related to race, sexuality, gender, and COVID-19 have reached a tipping point. According to this report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education and RAND, half of school system leaders say that these disagreements are disrupting schooling. Almost one in three district leaders also said their educators had received verbal or written threats about politically controversial topics since fall 2021. The findings come from surveys issued to 300 district and charter network leaders and interviews with superintendents. Their responses shed light on how political polarization has affected classrooms and how districts are responding. This report presents results from the fall 2022 survey of the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and CRPE. The panel also collaborates with several other education organizations, including the Council of the Great City Schools and Kitamba, to help improve outcomes for students throughout the United States.

In this report, we update our ongoing research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what system leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. The report is part of the American School District Panel, a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Key findings include: (1) Student absences and staff shortages have sidelined the adoption of academic acceleration strategies; (2) Districts are working hard to rebuild teacher capacity and collect better data on student performance; (3) Some districts are turning back to familiar instructional strategies developed before the pandemic. Others are offering different types of support for student academic recovery to address learning loss; and (4) The pandemic has changed district priorities and reshaped the work of superintendents and senior administrators. Districts haven't given up on restoring lost learning or improving classroom instruction. But to help students who spent months out of school, they're applying high-dosage tutoring, project-based learning and career-infused education in a piecemeal fashion, rather than pursuing academic acceleration as a comprehensive approach. [For the previous report in the series, "Whack-A-Mole: School Systems Respond to Disrupted Learning in 2021," see ED618897.]

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, emerging evidence provides a deeper understanding of the pandemic's impact on the more than 8 million young people with disabilities. This includes youth who receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or who qualify under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) in the U.S. For this latest special-education paper, the authors reviewed more than 100 research reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, news stories, and summaries of legal cases. They also reviewed the U.S. Department of Education's website and state websites. The evidence collected includes quantitative and qualitative research findings, themes from news stories, outcomes of lawsuits, and policy guidance. Together, this evidence shows that the ongoing challenges of the pandemic compounded and further complicated the educational experiences of students with disabilities. This report is the second installment of an updated set of papers that assess the best available evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected America's students. [For the previous report, "How Has the Pandemic Affected Students with Disabilities? A Review of the Evidence to Date," see ED615189.]

An abundance of opportunities to innovate in public education have emerged post-pandemic and the rules for defining how schooling works are up for grabs like never before. Yet, school districts are struggling to keep teachers on the job and schools open, much less address the mental health and academic toll of the pandemic. How can school systems possibly find the bandwidth to act on new visions for public education when their leaders are constantly trapped in crisis mode? One particular mechanism might allow them to pull this off: statewide school districts. This report outlines several existing statewide oversight efforts that overcome barriers that traditionally constrain schools or traditional districts. The report also explains how statewide districts could promote creative new learning options, including the following: (1) Providing infrastructure and support to allow cities, community groups, or even individuals to form small learning communities; (2) Creating a statewide system to validate students' learning, and to provide credit for those efforts; (3) Allowing youth to access a variety of service providers and mentors; (4) Ensuring all families can access educational options; and (5) Conducting or commissioning research on K-12 education innovations. We can't afford to allow possibilities that came into view during the pandemic to vanish in a rush to return to normal school operations, nor can we afford to watch innovations flourish outside of public education but remain inaccessible to students who stand to benefit from them. We need to build public-education systems that encourage and support innovation--and we need new state policies to help encourage those actions. [This report was written with contributions from Travis Pillow and Emily Liebtag. Education Reimagined partnered with the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) to co-author this paper.]

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the country in 2020, Washington state's emergent charter sector was growing. During this time, charter enrollment was growing by 28% each year, on average, and the number of schools in operation doubled from eight to 16. The new schools that opened were planned long before the pandemic. But even preexisting charter schools grew between 2020 and 2022, suggesting that more families opted into charter schools, possibly due to dissatisfaction with remote learning offerings in district schools. However, charter schools' rate of growth in 2021-22 has tapered slightly: two Center on Reinventing Public Education studies of Washington charter enrollment found that charter schools' growth outpaced that of their corresponding districts the first year of the pandemic but fell slightly short of their districts' growth in the second year. Heading into the 2022-23 school year, Washington charter schools are at a pivotal point in their development. Like all schools across the country, they must come up with new solutions to accelerate student learning, authentically engage families and communities, and provide a learning environment that heals and supports the well-being of both students and staff. This report offers some suggested courses of action for charter operators to harness opportunities in 2022-23.

Public education depends on expertise, work, money, and cooperation from multiple actors who have different interests and beliefs. These lead to competition and negotiation--in other words, politics. Failure to consider the politics of reform implementation and sustainability has doomed many promising K-12 school improvement initiatives. This paper analyzes more than 10 years of data on the implementation of the portfolio strategy to identify practical lessons on managing the politics of reform K-12 schools. Sustaining complex reforms like the portfolio strategy in a political environment requires leaders to: (1) Continually seek new supporters and renew the support of existing ones; (2) Expect and prepare for attacks and be alert to the unnecessary harms caused by their own actions, which bolster opposition; (3) Develop information strategies that document intermediate results, alert leaders to emergent problems and actively counter hostile narratives; (4) Be attentive to competing agendas and political liabilities within their own alliances; and (5) Prepare for leadership succession so that reforms have a chance to last long enough to make a difference. These observations challenge the conventional wisdom that sustainable reforms can be built only upon the percolating up of good ideas and initiatives from below. Reform leaders are essential to knitting together fragile coalitions who may be motivated by different goals and aligning new programs and initiatives--and politically reinforcing them over time--so their benefits can accumulate.

This executive summary provides highlights of the primary findings and recommendations from the State of the American Student: Fall 2022 report that draws on data the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has collected and synthesized during the pandemic. The report outlines the contours of the crisis American students have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and begins to chart a path to recovery and reinvention for all students--which includes building a new and better approach to public education that ensures an educational crisis of this magnitude cannot happen again. [For the full report, see ED623504.]

Since its launch in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the American School District Panel (ASDP) has been used to monitor timely topics in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) public education. Over time, ASDP surveys have coalesced around four key challenges that U.S. public school districts face today: school staffing, budgeting, the politicization of schooling, and academic recovery efforts. In this Data Note, authors provide a brief update on these four challenges using data from the fall 2023 ASDP survey. The survey included seven questions on these topics, and the findings of each question are briefly discussed.

This is Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)'s second consensus panel report on the pandemic and delays in students' learning. Based on the evidence available a year ago, CRPE reported the average K-12 student in America mastered less academic content due to the pandemic and associated disruptions to schooling. Negative impacts were generally larger in math than in reading, substantial across all grade levels, larger where students had less access to in-person instruction, and larger for Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. This year's report, based on 23 studies published since last July, offers even stronger evidence of the pandemic's negative consequences for student growth and development. The pauses to in-person schooling and related changes in family and community life over the past year continued to interrupt most children's academic growth, but the consequences are not evenly distributed. Children whose schools were closed the longest had their learning interrupted the most--and most often, that affected low-income children and children of color in big cities. In 2022 as in 2021, the authors aim to present a coherent baseline of what is known, unknown, and needs to be known at this stage of the pandemic--and the beginning of a recovery from the pandemic. These reports are designed to help system leaders, community leaders, policymakers, researchers, philanthropies, the media, and others to define ambitious goals and clear metrics that ensure our education system meets every student's needs over the coming years. [This report is an update to "How Much Have Students Missed Academically Because of the Pandemic? A Review of the Evidence to Date" (ED614130).]

In partnership with researchers around the country, CRPE conducted 22 case studies of community-based pandemic learning communities to learn more about the experiences of those who participated. This paper synthesizes lessons from seven initiatives that were led by community leaders of color to assess what they may cumulatively teach us about advancing racial justice in K-12 educational spaces. We found: (1) COVID-19 created a window of opportunity for leadership and innovation in communities of color; (2) Leaders of color drew on similar practices when designing the programs, including hiring staff of color, avoiding punitive discipline practices, adopting culturally relevant pedagogy, and supporting student and family well-being; (3) Leaders saw programs as a way to put advocacy proposals into action; (4) Parents reported high levels of satisfaction with the programming; and (5) Funding, expertise, and school reopenings challenge the future of these programs.

The proliferation of settings in which personalized learning platforms have been used during the pandemic offers rich opportunities for describing those use cases and understanding how such platforms might affect students' academic, social, and emotional outcomes. There is relatively little known about which use cases provide the best outcomes for students. In this report, the authors discuss one example of how personalized learning platforms were used in the first year of implementation in an innovative learning environment: the Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy (SNUMA). The SNUMA use case interested the researchers because leaders set ambitious goals for students whose learning was assessed as being below grade level. These goals encouraged extensive use of personalized learning platforms--usage that, to the best of the authors' knowledge, exceeded developer recommendations. The platform metrics examined suggest that most students made substantial progress and were assessed as performing at grade level by the end of the school year. However, these results also raise many questions. It is unknown, for example, if these gains will be validated by standardized assessments or if they were achieved at the expense of students' social and emotional well-being.

Pandemic learning pods revealed teachers and other adults are highly interested in playing more varied roles in children's education. And some pod-like staffing arrangements may continue to exist and grow in out-of-school settings, such as after-school programs. But this report examines a different potential development: "is it possible that the experiences staff had in pods could become much more common in the day-to-day operations of U.S. public schools, at scale?" The answer is a qualified "yes." Even before COVID, moves were afoot to create a range of new staffing arrangements within public schools that hit many of the same themes as pods, which are described in more detail in this report. Some of these arrangements had already begun to show positive impacts on student learning and educator satisfaction, as well as the ability to spread in different school contexts.

What supports were needed to enable the small learning communities, or pods, that emerged in 2020 and 2021? While learning pods may have emerged as a temporary response to a crisis, some persisted in fall 2021, either because of continued uncertainty over the pandemic's trajectory or because of their potential value as part of new structure for public education. This working paper maps the ecosystem of organizations needed to support a small subset of these learning communities, and offers conclusions to help leaders make the most of this opportunity: (1) Start with the "organizer"; (2) Focus on ecosystem gaps; (3) Attend to funding; (4) Move (with caution!) toward accountability; and (5) Pursue equity.

This paper draws from the Center on Reinventing Public Education's (CRPE's) study of pandemic pods conducted in 2020 and 2021 to understand what lessons can be drawn from the focused implementation of the whole-child approach in pandemic learning communities and to what degree these lessons are applicable to traditional schooling. The majority of the learning environments and their leaders that are the focus of this paper intentionally aimed to support children's social, emotional, physical, and mental health and/or identity development, as well as their academic growth. Promoting a safe, supportive, connected, and culturally competent learning environment was also a key priority, especially in pods designed for students who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Universally, these elements were supplemental to academic instruction.

There have been countless challenges faced by American families with school-aged children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the many challenges specifically relating to education has been ensuring children had access to a challenging academic curriculum. Whether children have been educated remotely or in hybrid settings, or whether they have been in a pod or homeschool, there have been barriers to the provision of a quality curriculum, such as: (1) Whether the school's curriculum materials (if there were any) are suitable for remote, homeschool, or pod instruction; (2) Whether teachers (whether regular certified teachers, homeschooling parents, or pod teachers) have the knowledge and skill to select and implement needed core and supplementary curriculum materials; and (3) Whether and how teachers are supplementing the core curriculum materials with enrichment activities and activities matched to student needs. This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the ways curriculum materials were used and identify lessons that could help improve access to quality curriculum and instruction moving forward, whether children are being educated in school, remotely, or in a homeschool/pod setting.

Data on the popularity of alternative educational models like "pandemic pods," homeschooling, "hybrid" homeschooling, and tutoring has been anecdotal, episodic, and parochial. Journalistic accounts of new learning communities in some cities and some states have profiled schools, the educators that teach in them, and the families that attend them, but collecting reliable, nationwide data has proved challenging. We at EdChoice have been surveying a nationally representative sample of Americans every month since early 2020, with an oversample of school parents starting in September 2020. This has allowed us to measure the nationwide sentiment around learning pods, homeschooling, hybrid homeschooling, tutoring, and the like. We have also surveyed a nationally representative sample of teachers every quarter and have put three polls of the nation's teenagers in the field in August of 2020, February of 2021, and September of 2021. Our survey results show there is potentially a robust market for learning pods, or similar arrangements such as microschools, hybrid homeschools, and homeschool cooperatives, and that this market could include large numbers of Black, Hispanic, and lower-income families.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the delivery of educational and therapeutic services for students with disabilities across the world, creating new obstacles for students, parents, teachers, and administrators navigating the impact of sudden halts in services and supports. Based on CRPE's most recent study of special education in charter and traditional public schools, this brief outlines the ongoing challenges and offers recommendations to reshape how America's schools serve students with disabilities. We offer the following policy considerations to address the persistent inequities for students with disabilities: (1) Track outcomes for students with disabilities--and report them transparently; (2) Ensure schools embrace universal design in remote and in-person learning; (3) Look closely at teacher workforce issues; and (4) Preparation programs and licensure standards should ensure that every teacher can serve every student.

In this report, we complement our latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel with in-depth interviews of leaders on the ground in five school systems. Our goal with these interviews was to learn from system leaders about the academic needs of children as they return to school, how districts and charter schools are addressing those needs, and how the pandemic has affected schools. In Brief: (1) Education leaders across the country recognize that students are falling behind academically during the pandemic. Some districts are responding by emphasizing grade-level instruction and just-in-time supports rather than remediation. We interviewed top leaders in five school systems committed to this approach to learn more about its implementation; (2) We found that implementing acceleration required school systems to work with schools in new ways, but the strategy was complicated by a host of factors that made getting to instruction difficult: challenging student behaviors, staffing shortages, and the politicization of health, safety, and education. All these pressures have made leading school districts in 2021-22 like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole; and (3) School districts across the country are working hard to catch students up. But the Whack-A-Mole experience of leading during the pandemic raises questions about how these pressures will affect system leaders and leadership and whether, in the future, schools alone will be able to do enough to help all students get the help they need to recover. [For latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel, "Flux in the Educator Labor Market: Acute Staff Shortages and Projected Superintendent Departures. Selected Findings from the Fourth American School District Panel Survey. Data Note: Insights from the American Educator Panels. Research Report. RR-A956-9," see ED617372.]

In summer 2020, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), with support from the Barr Foundation, began observing and learning from students, parents, and educators in New England high schools as they navigated the uncertainty of the pandemic. The authors wanted to see what challenges and opportunities they faced, the ways in which they adapted to disruptions, and the new strategies and capacities that took hold. After more than a year of disruption, the boundaries of what it means to "reinvent" high school stretched, and in some systems, the momentum for change accelerated. Students and teachers learned to work in new ways and reached new understandings about each other. When COVID wanes, schools will encounter a host of new and complex demands as they make sense of the pandemic's challenges and opportunities, including addressing unfinished learning, spending a tidal wave of federal funding, and navigating continued calls for racial and social justice amid a national culture war. The path forward raises a host of critical questions: (1) Will school systems leverage momentum from the pandemic to remake high school? If so, what adaptations and innovations will they embrace? And which students will benefit from these shifts?; (2) How do school system leaders, educators, families, and students redefine success in high school? To what extent and how are these aspirations reflected in the adaptations and innovations that school systems embrace?; and (3) What opportunities and obstacles do school system leaders, educators, families, and students confront as they seek to chart a new course to high school? How can they avoid the pitfalls that threaten to stall progress, especially for the most marginalized students? As the pandemic endures, and as we emerge from it, CRPE will continue to investigate whether and how the trends described lead to a more equitable, student-centered high school experience. In this effort, Think Forward New England explores not only what shifts emerge postpandemic but also why, for whom, and with what effect.

As stress and disruption have intensified for students over the past two years due to the pandemic, so has interest in and spending on social-emotional learning (SEL) in public education. Also mounting in some places is confusion about what SEL is and a lack of clarity about how, exactly, to implement SEL in sustainable, effective ways. In a time of crisis like no other for our children, how can schools best respond to their complex needs? The Center on Reinventing Public Education spent the 2020-21 school year digging into the issue from several vantage points. The authors turned to survey research and experts to understand how the pandemic was affecting student well-being and mental health, examined a national sample of school districts to see how school systems were supporting SEL, and looked for data and practices that schools might leverage to meet the moment. More than anything, schools need clarity about SEL. Teachers can't be left to figure out on their own how to build healthy environments and teach prosocial skills. As districts and schools plan more services and programming with a new wave of federal funding and seek to help students recover from the pandemic, they need to clearly define what SEL means for their institutions, what streams of work fall under that banner, and what problems they are using it to solve. Leaders must prioritize SEL through sufficient staffing and budgets, and schools must develop habits and processes that treat SEL as cross-cutting, school-wide, systemic work. This brief offers components of a comprehensive SEL approach, including: (1) Be clear about what SEL is and isn't; (2) Prioritize SEL through budget and personnel decisions; (3) Incorporate SEL into the school's mission and vision; (4) Develop a system to monitor what's needed and what works; (5) Make sure SEL is integrated into all aspects of school, especially academics; (6) Plan both whole-school activities and individual interventions; (7) Staff sufficiently to meet SEL needs; (8) Connect SEL to DEI work; and (9) Invest in adult SEL and well-being.

Lengthy school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic were challenging across the country. In cities like Detroit, where many students already were struggling, the difficulties for students and families were compounded. Bernita Bradley, a social entrepreneur and education-reform advocate, launched Engaged Detroit to help Black families interested in homeschooling "take control" of their children's learning. Engaged Detroit is a homeschool cooperative established on August 25, 2020. The co-op supports a culturally relevant educational approach that empowers families to educate their children based on their goals and values, including project-based, hands-on, and real-world learning supplemented by extracurricular and enrichment activities. The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) interviewed coaches, parents, and the founder of Engaged Detroit during summer 2021 to learn more about the organization. This case study provides a description of the implementation of Engaged Detroit.

Neighborhood North, a play-oriented community museum in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, had just opened when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and schools closed. The museum's mission is to increase educational equity in the community. Neighborhood North leaders immediately saw a need to support students at risk of falling behind in school with academic learning and social and emotional development and support families by providing childcare. Administrators collaborated with the local school district and a local faith-based organization that provided summer and out-of-school-time programming to organize two learning pods for children in grades K-5. Although this approach enabled rapid and low-cost start up in a crisis and benefitted to students, limited support and training for staff created challenges and may have limited the academic impact. This brief describes Neighborhood North's experience and the importance of community-based organizations (CBOs) in crisis response.

The Oakland REACH (REACH), a parent-run education advocacy group embedded in a predominantly Black and Latinx community in Oakland, California, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by developing programming in response to community needs and found an opportunity to shape practices in schools. REACH's story demonstrates the potential for community-based organizations to play a larger role in addressing both current challenges and longstanding iniquities in the public education system. This brief discusses the key lessons learned.