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U.S. public schools are engaged in an unprecedented effort to expand tutoring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Broad-based support for scaling tutoring emerged, in part, because of the large effects on student achievement found in prior meta-analyses. We conduct an expanded meta-analysis of 265 randomized controlled trials and explore how estimates change when we better align our sample with a policy-relevant target of inference: large-scale tutoring programs in the U.S. aiming to improve standardized test performance. Pooled effect sizes from studies with stronger target-equivalence remain meaningful but are only a third to a half as large as those from our full sample. This result is driven by stark declines in pooled effect sizes as program scale increases. We explore four hypotheses for this pattern and document how a bundled package of recommended design features serves to partially inoculate programs from these attenuated effects at scale.

This volume serves as a companion to the "Lessons from the First Statewide Family Engagement Centers: Alignment with Federal Priorities and Factors Influencing Implementation" report. The report focuses on the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) program and provides insights into its implementation and alignment with federal priorities on family engagement. This appendix provides additional information to supplement the main report, with its content referenced throughout the report. Appendix A presents the study design and analysis. Appendix B includes supporting and supplemental tables that provide additional information about the SFEC program and its implementation.

This report describes the implementation efforts of the first grantees under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) and how they aligned with program priorities. Begun in 2018, SFEC is one of the key U.S. Department of Education programs designed to address disparities in family engagement in schools. The program provides grants to selected partnerships of education organizations and their states to deliver services and disseminate technical assistance resources to further family-school engagement. The study was designed to provide early lessons about the program, including the extent to which implementation reflected the 2018 federal emphasis on providing services directly to families and schools, using specific approaches, topics, and ways of collaborating among partners, and serving mostly disadvantaged families and districts with high concentrations of students from such families. The study also examined the factors that influenced grantee implementation, including challenges in carrying out their program efforts that coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and immediately after.

Further education (FE) plays a key part in the post-16 educational landscape in England in delivering technical and academic education that is vital to the country's supply of skilled workers. Yet, despite this importance, the sector has been facing significant challenges in recent years, including critical staff shortages in some subject areas. Data and research on FE teaching staff shortages, including their main causes, is limited. However, the available research points towards a deterioration in real-terms pay for FE teachers, and the resulting emergence of pay gaps with industry and teachers in other settings, as a likely contributor. This research utilised a mixed-methods research design to build upon existing literature and provide new insights on the FE workforce, including estimates of the magnitude of pay disparities between FE teaching and industry. The research also explores other factors that may impact on recruitment and retention, alongside pay. As this was an exploratory research project, its scope was focussed specifically on the technical education routes where the research suggests both pay gaps for FE teachers relative to 'outside' industry occupations (Lake et al., 2018) and unfilled vacancy rates are the highest (DfE, 2023c): (1) Construction and the built environment, (2) Engineering and manufacturing and (3) Digital. The project involved the collection of interview data from teaching staff and heads of departments in our focus subjects working in general FE colleges.

We use data from the applications North Carolina public school districts and charter schools submitted for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) to investigate the sense that educational leaders made of the pandemic as it unfolded. LEAs understood the pandemic as a multifaceted problem. Nearly all applications addressed four problems: (1) public health, (2) academics and learning loss, (3) student and community well-being, and (4) instructional access. However, we document considerable variation in problem emphasis over time, across LEAs, and across organizational sector. The pandemic was not a single organizational problem, but many simultaneous problems posed in varying and shifting combinations. We argue this multi-faceted organizational view should be a starting point for assessments of LEAs' pandemic response.

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on academic "redshirting" in kindergarten, the practice of holding a child back for a year and enrolling them in kindergarten at age 6, using student-level data on all Delaware kindergarten students from fall 2014 through fall 2022. The rate of redshirting declined by 40% in fall 2020, then increased by 44% (relative to pre-pandemic baseline) in fall 2021, and more for some subgroups of children traditionally less likely to redshirt. Further, redshirting was not restricted to children with summer birthdays, as in previous years, with growth seen across the age distribution. Redshirting had not returned to pre-pandemic baseline by fall 2022. These findings point to changes in the motivations for redshirting kindergarten students since the pandemic.

Since the peak of the pandemic in 2020, enrollment in virtual schools has steadily increased, with virtual schools now accounting for approximately 1.4% of the nation's public school students. While the effects of the pandemic on student achievement and mental health have been extensively studied, research has yet to thoroughly examine the impact of the pandemic on state policies and local organizational practices related to virtual schooling. Although some believed the onset of the pandemic would fundamentally reshape virtual schooling options in K-12 education, others were more skeptical, believing expanded virtual learning options were merely a temporary fix. This study examines whether the pandemic shaped virtual schooling at both the local and state levels, and if the changes made are likely to last and/or improve equity. The authors interviewed state and local education leaders and advocates, analyzed policy documents, websites, and media, observed legislative proceedings, and examined organizational practices in a sample of schools between 2019 and 2022 in Oregon. This state had an extensive history of virtual schooling before the pandemic, and enrollment continues to grow. The findings offer important lessons for policymakers and leaders to consider as the availability of virtual schools remains widespread across the country.

This brief continues ongoing research by NWEA® examining the degree to which the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated school closures, influenced student learning. Prior research focused on math and reading and found that the pandemic's negative impact steadily accumulated during the 2020-2021 school year, with significant disparities in achievement and growth compared to prepandemic trends (Lewis, Kuhfeld, Ruzek, & McEachin, 2021). Although there were modest rebounds in reading and math during the 2021-2022 school year, progress toward pandemic recovery largely stalled in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, with achievement and growth trends still trailing behind prepandemic levels (Kuhfeld & Lewis, 2022; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2023; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2024). Building on previous research series focused on math and reading achievement, this brief explores how the pandemic influenced student achievement in science. It examines science test scores across seven school years to understand how COVID-19 influenced science achievement.

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share detailed results and more fully describe the sample and methods used to produce the research brief, "COVID's Impact on Science Achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024. We investigated three main research questions in this brief: 1) How did science achievement in 2021 and 2024 compare to achievement in 2019, before the pandemic? 2) How much additional schooling was required in spring 2021 and spring 2024 to return to spring 2019 levels? 3) How do these patterns differ by race/ethnicity?

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.

This report presents selected findings from the 2020/22 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:20/22), a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education. The findings in this report are based on data about a nationally representative sample of all first-time beginning students (FTBs) who entered postsecondary education for the first time during the 2019-20 academic year. BPS:20/22 is the first follow-up of a cohort of FTBs originally identified during the 2019-20 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20) and covers 3 years of students' experiences, from their first year of postsecondary education in the 2019-20 academic year through the 2021-22 academic year. The BPS:20/22 sample consisted of approximately 37,330 total students, representing the approximately 3.3 million undergraduates who were first-time postsecondary students enrolled in the 2019-20 academic year. Data from BPS can address questions about students' postsecondary enrollment patterns, continued enrollment in college, highest postsecondary credential earned, social and academic experiences and activities, and employment history. To facilitate analyses of student choices and postsecondary enrollment and credential attainment, the BPS:20/22 survey collected information on teacher effectiveness, as well as frequency and types of communication and interactions with family and friends, faculty members, and other students, which were also included in the NPSAS:20 survey. Additionally, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several survey questions asked respondents to report on employment and education disruptions and personal experiences "as a result of the coronavirus pandemic" in spring 2020 and in the 2020-21 academic year. Respondents indicated their perception of whether an experience was the result of the coronavirus pandemic. The report provides information on first-time postsecondary students' attainment and persistence rates at any institution 3 years after they began postsecondary education, along with their education and personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this report, attainment represents the students' highest postsecondary credential earned, whereas persistence describes enrollment during the 2021-22 academic year for students who had not earned a postsecondary credential. As a result, students who earned a postsecondary credential and enrolled for additional postsecondary education are accounted for in attainment rates. It is important to note that BPS:20/22 data reflect first-time postsecondary students' experiences over 3 academic years, when many students are still working toward a postsecondary credential. The 2022/25 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, which is designed to follow up with students 6 years after they began postsecondary education, will provide more comprehensive data about postsecondary attainment. This First Look shows some of the ways that BPS:20/22 data can be used. Selected findings are not intended to emphasize any particular issue, and the report does not discuss all the information presented in the tables. Readers should not infer causality from the data in this report. Although many of the factors discussed are related to each other, this report does not explore these relationships. The student- and institution-level factors in this report are just a few of the several hundred that will be available in the BPS:20/22 data.

Outstanding federal student loan debt exceeds $1.6 trillion and is owed by about 45 million borrowers. Since taking office, the Biden Administration has taken various actions to address student loan debt. These actions have ranged in scope (both in terms of borrower populations affected and associated modification costs), rationales, and the avenues through which they were taken (e.g., formal rulemaking procedures, issuance of guidance). A primary criticism of many of the actions the Biden Administration has taken relate to these actions' costs to the federal government. In contrast, supporters contend that these actions help address borrower difficulty in managing and repaying student loan debt. This report compiles executive actions taken during the Biden Administration that have affected the costs of outstanding federal student loans. It begins by briefly describing relevant federal student loan programs. It then explains the methodology CRS used to compile the list of executive actions. Next, the report discusses accounting for the costs of federal student loan programs, including discussion of the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (FCRA) because CRS's methodology relies on how the U.S. Department of Education (ED) accounts for the costs of the student loan programs under this act. Finally, the report lists and describes executive actions taken in FY2021-FY2023 that ED recognized as affecting the cost of outstanding federal student loans and provides ED's cost estimate for each action. Table 1 summarizes each of these actions and their modification costs. Table 2 presents net modification costs for the relevant federal student loan programs for FY2021-FY2023.

Leaders in higher education face increasing pressure to ensure their institutions are well-positioned to adapt to our changing world. As part of responding to these demands, a growing number of institutions have established dedicated teams of in-house experts to support this work and the culture change around it, broadly termed academic change or academic innovation. This report details methods and findings of a comprehensive survey of academic innovation department leaders in colleges and universities across the United States. The survey received responses from 138 academic innovation leaders who shared details on the scope of their work, the structures and institutional resources supporting it, their impact, and their perspectives on contemporary challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and its influence on postsecondary learning. Ten years after the first such survey, findings included evidence of increasing staffing and budgets, evolving priorities, shifting reporting structures, and technological advancement. Implications include expanding research and professional communities for this relatively new functional area within US higher education, recommendations for institutional leaders, and a focus on supporting continued growth. As a result, the report serves as a census of academic innovation units in an array of US colleges and universities, with details relevant for benchmarking and further research. The following are appended: (1) Data tables for all survey items; (2) Participating institution list; and (3) Survey instrument. [This report was produced by the University of Michigan, Center for Academic Innovation and Quantum Thinking. Additional sponsors for this report include: Class Technologies, Acadeum, Intelliboard, Auburn University, Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning Leading Academic Change, EdPlus at Arizona State University, Bentley University, University System of Maryland, William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, POD Network in Higher education (POD), and SAB Creative & Consulting.]

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits delivered through the CalFresh program, California's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for groceries, but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems have lacked good estimates of the share of their students who are eligible for CalFresh and the share who actually receive benefits. To address this information gap, the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Community College (CCC) Chancellor's Office, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to build a linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and CalFresh participation. This database covers all students enrolled at CCC or UC campuses from academic years 2010-11 through 2021-22, along with corresponding FAFSA submissions and CalFresh participation. Using these data, researchers are able to measure how many college students are likely eligible for CalFresh, and of those how many participate. This report was updated in August 2024 with updated eligibility statistics that reflect results from a refined simulation of student eligibility for CalFresh. Using the improved simulation, the researchers found that among California Community College students, 20% of students were eligible for CalFresh (an increase from the 16% estimate in the June version of this report), among University of California (UC) undergraduates, 33% were eligible (an increase from 31% in the June report), and among UC graduate students, 7% were eligible (an increase from 6%).

The immediate impacts of COVID-19 on K12 schooling are well known. Over nearly 18 months, students' academic performance and mental health deteriorated dramatically. This study aims to identify if and how the pandemic led to longer-term changes in core aspects of schooling. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 31 teachers and administrators across 12 districts in two states, we find that schools today look quite different in several areas including the availability and use of instructional technology, instructional practice, parent-teacher communication, and the balance between academics and social-emotional well-being. We interpret these findings through the lens of institutional theory, and discuss implications of the changes for practitioners and policymakers.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and policymakers have scrambled to assess the impact on student learning. Popular metrics that have gained traction are the notions of "years of learning lost" or "months behind," which attempt to quantify the educational setbacks caused by the pandemic. The allure of these time-based metrics is understandable; they provide a seemingly straightforward way to communicate the magnitude of learning loss to non-technical audiences. But beneath their simplicity lies a complex web of assumptions, statistical manipulations, and, ultimately, misleading conclusions that may do more harm than good. This paper delves into the flaws of time-based metrics and argues for a more meaningful approach to measuring student progress. It challenges the assumption that more time automatically equates to more learning and advocates for assessments that provide richer, content-based insights into student abilities and needs. By critically examining the current narrative, the paper seeks to inspire educators and policymakers to reconsider how we measure and respond to educational challenges in a post-pandemic world. [Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council on Measurement in Education (Philadelphia, PA, 2024).]

This paper reports findings from a nationally representative survey of K-12 teachers in May 2023 that examines the potential long-term impacts of COVID-19 on public schooling. The findings suggest fundamental ways in which school operations, instructional practice and parent-teacher interaction have changed since the pandemic. Some changes seem promising; others suggest caution. While policymakers may not be able to directly influence some of the reported changes in the short run, monitoring the evolution of school practices (and their consequences for children) will position educational leaders to help teachers and students address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic going forward.

Global progress in child labour reduction has stalled since 2016. In South Asia, the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, recurrent extreme weather events and the cost-of-living crisis further threaten to slow or even reverse the progress made. This synthesis report addresses a timely need for new research to help decision-makers and practitioners identify policy and programmatic actions that can support prevention and reduction of child labour in South Asia, with a focus on the role of education. Drawing on quantitative data and qualitative primary evidence from UNICEF Innocenti's research in Bangladesh and India, it offers an accessible and rigorous overview of recent trends and patterns in child labour and explores how these relate to children's schooling experiences in both countries. Implications of COVID-19 for education and labour, and the role of child marriage as a key related outcome, are also assessed. The report also explores children's perspectives of their labour and schooling experiences, including in migration contexts as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures. The report concludes with programmatic and research recommendations for further action at regional, country, and global levels.

India has made rapid progress towards the universalization of school education, hand in hand with a decline in child labour. Despite progress, child labour persists in the country, just as school attendance and completion rates reveal gaps in educational attainment. This report addresses a timely need for new research to help decision-makers and practitioners build an improved understanding of how to?strengthen the role of education in the elimination of child labour across India. Drawing on quantitative secondary data analysis and qualitative primary data analysis, it offers an accessible and rigorous overview of recent patterns in child labour in India and their linkages with children's school participation. The report also explores children's perspectives of their labour and schooling experiences, including in migration contexts as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures. The report concludes with programmatic and research recommendations for further action.

In the past two decades, Bangladesh experienced a substantial reduction in the prevalence of child labour, associated with improvements in school enrolment and completion. Despite progress, child labour persists in the country, also driven by household earning losses and school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report addresses a timely need for new research to help decision-makers and practitioners identify policy and programmatic actions that can support prevention and reduction of child labour, with a focus on the role of education. Drawing on quantitative secondary data analysis and qualitative primary data analysis, it offers an accessible and rigorous overview of recent trends and patterns in child labour and explores how these relate to children's schooling experiences. Implications of COVID-19 for education and labour, and the role of child marriage as a key related outcome, are also assessed. The report concludes with programmatic and research recommendations for further action. [This report was prepared by the Economic Research Group (ERG).]

This report explores the dramatic increase in Head Start teacher turnover during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) from 2010 to 2022, the study investigates trends in teacher turnover across all Head Start program types and examines the reasons behind teacher departures. The report finds that teacher turnover surged significantly in both 2020-21 and 2021-22, with the 2021-22 year experiencing a particularly sharp increase exceeding 28% of teachers. Turnover rates varied by program type, with Early Head Start programs exhibiting higher turnover than traditional Head Start programs, and American Indian Alaska Native (AIAN) Early Head Start programs seeing the highest rate at 37.1%. The study reveals that compensation remains the most common reason cited for teachers' departures, both before and during the pandemic. However, COVID-19 related factors also emerged as prominent reasons for departure. This research underscores the urgent need to address the challenges of teacher turnover in the Head Start sector, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. The report advocates for policy initiatives aimed at improving teacher retention through enhanced compensation.

Utilizing course grade data from 22 four-year higher education institutions, this study highlights the trends in first-year grade point average (FYGPA) between the 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 academic years, the period immediately before and after the pandemic disrupted both K12 and higher education. Results showed that while FYGPAs generally increased at institutions with more selective admission standards, especially private, more selective institutions, FYGPAs remained relatively unchanged at the less selective institutions. Over these five years, high school grade point average (HSGPA) generally increased among incoming students at nearly every institution while SAT® scores generally decreased. The results of institution-level logistic regression analyses indicated that students with the same pre-college academic achievement levels as measured by SAT scores and HSGPA were more likely to earn a FYGPA of 3.0 or higher in later cohort years than were students in the 2017 cohort. Faculty survey results, based on more than 3,000 respondents from over 1,200 higher education institutions, complement the administrative data analyses in this study. The survey findings suggest college faculty believe that the characteristics of incoming students as well as their academic performance in college are weaker now than in the past. Implications for future higher education research and facilitating nuanced K12 and higher education conversations on more effectively preparing students for college are discussed.

This brief is a continuation of NWEA's research series examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement and progress toward academic recovery. Initiated in the early phase of the pandemic, this series has leveraged NWEA's large national sample of longitudinal MAP® Growth™ data to track student performance and compare it to historical trends. The authors have tracked two critical aspects of student performance in the wake of the pandemic: achievement and growth. Achievement data reveals the extent of unfinished learning. The authors refer to the distance between current test scores and prepandemic trends as "achievement gaps." Growth data estimate how much test scores increase over time. They use these data to indicate whether students are making gains that keep pace with prepandemic trends. Understanding and tracking both achievement and growth is important. Achievement gaps quantify how much unfinished learning remains, while growth patterns help gauge the rate at which gaps will close. The system needs accelerated or above-average growth for students to catch up. The data provide insights into how effectively this is happening. The cumulative research shows that the harmful effects of the pandemic on student achievement steadily accumulated over the course of the 2020-21 school year (Lewis, Kuhfeld, Ruzek, & McEachin, 2021). Growth generally returned to, or slightly exceeded, prepandemic trends in the 2021-22 school year (Kuhfeld & Lewis, 2022). Progress stalled in 2022-23 when growth in nearly all grades fell short of prepandemic trends (Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2023). In this analysis, the authors use 2023-24 school year data to examine the current progress toward recovery. They examine test scores from approximately 7.7 million students currently in grades 3-8 in 22,400 public schools who have taken MAP Growth reading and math assessments since the onset of the pandemic. The "COVID sample" consists of six separate cohorts of students followed longitudinally across the last three school years. For instance, current fifth-graders are part of the grade 3-5 cohort; they measure this cohort's achievement across third grade in 2021-22, fourth grade in 2022-23, and fifth grade in 2023-24. The authors compared this COVID sample to a comparable group of 10 million students who tested in grades 3-8 in the pre-COVID school years of 2016-17 through 2018-19.

Using data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators, this brief explores changes in the Los Angeles County labor market and in the working-age population as a plausible explanation for some of the enrollment decline at the county's community college campuses.

In this brief, the authors examine changes in enrollments at the Los Angeles Community College District between fall 2017 and summer 2023 to document the extent of pandemic-era enrollment declines overall and across student populations.

We study changes to teacher working conditions from 2016-17 to 2022-23, covering school years before, during, and after the COVID pandemic. We show working conditions were improving leading into the pandemic but declined when the pandemic arrived. Perhaps more surprisingly, the pandemic was not a low point: teacher working conditions have continued to decline during the post-pandemic period. Teachers report worsening working conditions along many dimensions including the level of classroom disruptions, student responsibility, and safety, among others. They also report declines in trust between themselves and principals, parents, and other teachers. Trends in working conditions since the pandemic are similar in schools serving more and less socioeconomically advantaged students. However, schools in districts where online learning was the predominant mode of instruction during the 2020-21 school year have experienced larger declines than other schools.

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.

This First Look report presents data on public elementary and secondary education revenues and expenditures at the local education agency (LEA) or school district level for fiscal year (FY) 2022. Specifically, this report includes the following types of school district finance data: (1) revenue, current expenditure, and capital outlay expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) current expenditures by function and object; (4) revenues and current expenditures per pupil; and (5) revenues and expenditures from COVID-19 Federal Assistance Funds. This First Look report focuses on education revenues and expenditures at the school district level. The finance data used in this report are from the School District Finance Survey (F-33), 2F 3 a component of the Common Core of Data (CCD). The CCD is a group of annual public elementary/secondary data collections administered by NCES. The F-33 survey consists of LEA-level finance data submitted annually to the U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) by state education agencies (SEAs) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. SEAs report financial data covering services that provide or support prekindergarten through high school for public education for a variety of types of LEAs. These LEAs include regular school districts, independent charter school districts, as well as a substantial number of administrative and operating LEAs that are unlike typical school districts (e.g., education service agencies that provide specialized education services for school districts, such as vocational and other specialized education services for school districts). The purpose of this First Look report is to introduce new data through the presentation of tables containing descriptive information. The selected findings chosen for this report demonstrate the range of information available when using F-33 data files and are not intended to emphasize any particular issue(s).

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to students across the United States, particularly those who are parents enrolled in community colleges. California's community college system serves a diverse student population, including a significant number of non-traditional, working adults who are also parents. These students have faced unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic, including the difficulties of balancing childcare responsibilities with academic and professional obligations. This paper summarizes the preliminary findings of a study that intends to contribute to the crucial conversation around childcare needs among community college students. The focus of this study was understanding the experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) mothers with young children and the impact of COVID-19 on their educational experiences in community colleges across the state of California.

The purpose of the addendum is to document the findings from the Year 2 student achievement analyses of a teacher-level randomized experiment, which was designed to examine the implementation and impact of a scalable version of the 2-year MyTeachingPartner Secondary (MTP-S) program as part of a federally-funded Education Innovation and Research (EIR) project. Due to COVID-caused delays, we were unable to include findings about the impact of MTP-S on Year 2 student achievement in the final report produced at the end of the EIR project (Wayne et al., 2023). With the support of a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation, we were able to complete the collection and analyses of Year 2 student achievement data presented in this addendum. Similar to the Year 1 student achievement findings presented in our EIR final project report, the Year 2 student achievement findings did not reveal any significant program impact on students' math or English language arts achievement at the end of the 2-year program. Findings from this study need to be interpreted with caution given study limitations resulting largely from the influence of the pandemic.

In order to assist higher education institutions and their students during the pandemic, the federal government established the Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) Fund, which directed over $75 billion to institutions of higher education--including nearly $25 billion to community colleges--over a three-year period. The U.S. Department of Education worked on a rapid timeline to distribute these funds to institutions, which they could use to provide direct aid to students facing financial challenges and cover institutional costs related to the pandemic. Drawing on a survey of community colleges in six states--California, Michigan, New York (State University of New York [SUNY] colleges), Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas--this report provides insight into the specific pandemic recovery activities colleges implemented, colleges' perceptions of how successful HEER funds were in addressing student and institutional needs during the pandemic, and colleges' views of unmet needs. The institutional survey was completed by 170 out of a total of 265 community colleges in the six states. Key findings from the report: (1) Colleges spent nearly all the HEER funds they received. Given the large amount of HEER funding and the fact that colleges did not need to submit a proposal and budget for how they would use the funds, it should not be assumed that colleges would have spent all the money they received. Yet colleges spent nearly all the funds they received by the time the HEER program ended in June 2023; (2) HEER funds met a variety of student and institutional needs during the pandemic. Colleges had relatively few problems using the funds and felt that the aid was successful in mitigating student and institutional hardships; (3) Colleges focused on retaining existing students; they employed a variety of methods to support students in need. Colleges used HEER funds to support and retain existing (pre-pandemic) students rather than to recruit new students. They focused on supporting students with financial exigencies, including those experiencing food and housing insecurity. They used institutional aid to forgive debt owed to the college and to provide food, housing, and childcare assistance; (4) Spending patterns suggest that colleges experienced similar challenges during the pandemic and often prioritized the same objectives. Despite differences in state contexts and institutional settings, colleges tended to allocate funds in similar ways. For example, most colleges used aid for campus safety and technology hardware. Expenditure patterns also shifted over time in similar ways, indicating that colleges were responsive to evolving needs; (5) Expenditures related to campus safety and technology remained strong but decreased in frequency over time; expenditures to support students' mental health increased in frequency. Mental health services was the only expenditure category that increased in frequency in each of the three years of funding, likely reflecting the toll the pandemic took on students' mental health; (6) Comparing pre- and post-pandemic spending, HEER funds had the most impact on increasing support for technology hardware, high-speed internet, and housing assistance. Colleges used HEER funds both to fund existing services and to begin offering new ones. Fewer than a third of colleges had services in place to provide technology hardware, high-speed internet, and housing assistance before the pandemic; many more did so afterward; (7) Concerns about the end of HEER funding and priorities for future funding expose a need for continued flexible resources to address students' financial needs. Colleges' main concern about the end of HEER funding was that it would limit their ability to support students during an emergency. Their top priority for using future funding was additional student aid; and (8) Rural and vocational/technical colleges (as defined by the Carnegie Classification) may have had fewer resources prior to the pandemic and may be in greater need of additional support. Colleges in towns and rural areas and colleges focused on technical training were less likely to offer a number of supports both pre- and post-pandemic. Rural colleges were also less likely to report having received additional funding for pandemic recovery from sources other than HEER funds. Overall, while the survey findings suggest that HEER largely met the goals for which it was intended, they also point to the importance of addressing systemic challenges facing community college students and the institutions that serve them. Now that the immediate crisis of the pandemic has passed and HEER funding has ended, there is an opportunity to think strategically about the investments that are needed to promote student success over the long term, particularly for underserved and financially vulnerable students who are the most at risk of stopping out or not enrolling in the first place.

Most selective colleges implemented test-optional admissions during the pandemic, making college entrance exam scores optional for applicants. We draw on descriptive, two-way fixed effects, and event study methods to examine variation in test-optional implementation during the pandemic and how implementation relates to selectivity and enrollment. For "test-optional" colleges during the pandemic, we found substantial variation in policy type (e.g., test optional, test free) and whether the policy extended to all applicants and scholarship consideration. Findings suggest test-optional implementation related to increases in Black student enrollment, mostly at moderately selective colleges and when policies extended to all applicants and scholarships. At highly selective colleges, findings suggest test-optional implementation related to an increase in applications but not consistent gains in enrollment.

The Wallace Foundation commissioned Research for Action and McClanahan Associates to study how out-of-school time intermediaries (OSTIs) responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the role they could play in supporting communities moving forward. Citywide out-of-school time (OST) systems encompass a wide variety of afterschool and summer programs and associated provider organizations, youth participants, and their families. These systems were stretched during the COVID-19 pandemic and the national racial reckoning to respond to community needs in new and more equitable ways. Also impacted were OSTIs that manage OST systems within individual cities. OSTIs operate through various governance structures and perform a range of coordination functions intended to ensure quality, access, and equity in OST systems so that all youth have access to the unique out-of-school resources and opportunities they need to thrive.

Over the past two decades, researchers have spent countless hours studying the impacts of public charter schools--independently-run, tuition-free schools of choice that serve some 3.7 million U.S. students today. Just prior to the pandemic, studies from Ohio and nationally indicated that charters on average delivered superior academic outcomes compared to traditional districts. And the very finest charters in Ohio and around the nation were driving learning gains that gave disadvantaged students the edge needed to succeed in college and career. The pandemic scrambled most everything about K-12 education. But did it upend what we know about charter school performance? The present study examines the post-pandemic performance of Ohio's brick-and-mortar charter schools, which enrolled 81,000 students--mostly from urban communities--during the 2022-23 school year. The results reveal that, in terms of student achievement growth, Ohio's charter schools remain a better educational option for the average charter student.