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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.

Promise programs are discussed as a policy movement that began with the 2005 launch of the Kalamazoo Promise. Since then, programs bearing the Promise label or sharing similar features have spread across the higher educational landscape, appearing in most states and across postsecondary sectors. Simultaneously, scholarly literature discussing these programs has burgeoned. And yet, scholars and others are unable to formulate a clear conception of what a Promise program is and what if anything sets such a program apart from other scholarship programs (e.g., state need-based grants). In this paper, we examine how scholars have discussed these programs over time. We begin with the initial theorization of the Kalamazoo Promise as a case and observe its use as a prototype in the formulation of a general model once "Promise program" was established as a category. We follow how the spread and transformation of "Promise programs" was reflected in repeated partial reconceptualization. We find three competing conceptual models emerging in sequence: 1) a thick, place-based causal model derived as a generalization of the Kalamazoo Promise, 2) a thin empirical model crafted in the aftermath of the launch of the Tennessee Promise, and 3) a partially acknowledged minimal or symbolic model advanced haltingly in response to critiques of last-dollar community college state programs. Scholarly conceptualization is largely reactive to empirical program diffusion and transformation, though scholarly idealization may have played a role in this diffusion itself.

College students make job decisions without complete information. As a result, they may rely on misleading heuristics ("interesting jobs pay badly") and pursue options misaligned with their goals. We test whether highlighting job characteristics changes decision making. We find increasing the salience of a job's monetary benefits increases the likelihood college students apply by 196%. In contrast, emphasizing prosocial, career, or social benefits has no effect, despite students identifying these benefits as primary motivators for applying. The study highlights the detrimental incongruencies in students' decision making alongside a simple strategy for recruiting college students to jobs that offer enriching experiences.

This Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative (the Collaborative) report examines how faculty and staff at seven community colleges and two broad-access universities reconsidered students' online learning needs in the midst of the pandemic. The report focuses on a set of interconnected student mindsets and competencies that the authors call self-directed learning (SDL) skills; in their framing, SDL skills include motivational processes (e.g., building self-efficacy and sense of belonging), metacognitive processes (e.g., identifying and adjusting learning strategies and reflecting), and applied learning processes (e.g., managing time and seeking help). The authors explore whether and how the colleges offered supports for students to strengthen their SDL skills and the extent to which SDL skill supports were offered within online courses versus outside of class. Findings from interview data and secondary sources show that most institutions made changes to improve conditions for online teaching and learning, including improved use of learning management systems, increased professional development for instructors, improved physical technology infrastructure and expanded software licenses, and the development of student-facing online orientation materials. At the same time, increased use of online courses continued to present challenges, including poorer student performance in online course sections, lack of meaningful communication and engagement, lower likelihood for online students to seek help when they need it, and increased demands for students to apply SDL skills such as time and task management. Moreover, many SDL supports occurred at the institution level and therefore were not tailored to particular content areas or course types. These supports provided students with valuable and needed resources to help them succeed in college but also had some limitations. Finally, while most faculty and staff the authors interviewed expressed that SDL skills are important and should be supported by the institution, explicit instructional support for SDL skills inside classrooms appeared to be limited and uneven; faculty may not know how to teach these skills, may not think that they have the time or resources to do so, or may not see it as their responsibility. The report concludes with three recommendations for institutions to promote SDL skill development. "Teaching and Designing Online STEM Courses to Support Self-Directed Learning Skills" which focuses on teaching and designing online STEM courses to support SDL skills is a collaborative report.

This is the technical appendix for the report "From Insights to Impact: Fostering Innovation through Texas" which examines the current national landscape of higher education research and development to help gauge Texas' current position and identify opportunities to drive further innovations into the future. This appendix includes the following sections: (1) Maintaining Texas' Edge; (2) From Roadmap to Reality; (3) Texas' Competitive Position; (4) Technology Transfer Landscape; and (5) Amplifying the Impact. [This report was produced with TIP Strategies, Inc. and Research Bridge Partners.]

School district boundaries define more than just the area where a certain group of children attends a given set of schools. They also determine the taxing jurisdiction that supports those schools with local property taxes. Big differences in property value can lead to large funding gaps, even between neighboring districts. These disparities in property values are the legacy of discriminatory housing policies explicitly intended to segregate neighborhoods by race and class. The school district lines drawn onto this divided landscape then replicate segregation and inequity in schools. But our current district borders need not be permanent. They can be redrawn to produce better outcomes for students and their schools. In a new research report, New America's Education Funding Equity Initiative analyzes nearly 25,000 pairs of adjacent school districts to measure how district borders create deep economic and racial divisions, producing radically different educational resources and experiences for students in different districts--even districts that are right next door to each other. It also features stories about these disparities told by local educators and families. An accompanying multimedia story shows what these divides mean for American school districts and communities, and an interactive national map and data tool allows users to explore American school districts and the borders that surround them.

The tables have turned on Michigan's public school boards and other school officials. As a result of changes to the state's labor law in 2023, school districts face the risk of losing some authority to determine who should be teaching in their classrooms. Teachers unions are empowered once again to demand districts treat teachers as if they are interchangeable widgets, basing all decisions related to promotion, placement and pay on seniority. School officials have not had to bargain over these issues for more than a decade but will suddenly find themselves facing these concerns again. The report reviewed the teachers union contracts in the 200 largest school districts in Michigan, which enroll about 70% of the public school students in the state. It reveals that some districts have automatic revival language in their contracts, which will make the changes to collective bargaining take immediate effect. It also assesses how thoroughly districts complied with the 2011 reforms and offers suggestions for school officials to deal with this new bargaining reality. It concludes by suggesting school districts review their existing contracts, familiarize themselves with previously prohibited terms, and negotiate firmly to preserve contract terms that prioritize improving teacher effectiveness and educational outcomes rather than union priorities such as reestablishing seniority-based rules.

COVID-19 upended schooling across the United States, but with what consequences for the state-level institutions that drive most education policy? This paper reports findings on two related research questions. First, what were the most important ways state government education policymakers changed schools and schooling from the moment they began to reckon with the seriousness of COVID-19 through the first full academic year of the pandemic? Second, how deep did those changes go -- are there indications the pandemic triggered efforts to make lasting changes in states' education policymaking institutions? Using multiple-methods research focused on Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon, we documented policies enacted during the period from March 2020 through June 2021 across states and across sectors (traditional and choice) in three COVID-19-related education policy domains: school closings and reopenings, budgeting and resource allocation, and assessment and accountability systems. We found that states quickly enacted radical changes to policies that had taken generations to develop. They mandated sweeping school closures in Spring 2020, and then a diverse array of school reopening policies in the 2020/2021 school year. States temporarily modified their attendance-based funding systems and allocated massive federal COVID-19 relief funds. Finally, states suspended annual student testing, modified the wide array of accountability policies and programs linked to the results of those tests, and adapted to new assessment methods. These crisis-driven policy changes deeply disrupted long-established patterns and practices in education. Despite this, we found that state education governance systems remained resilient, and that at least during the first 16 months of the pandemic, stakeholders showed little interest in using the crisis to trigger more lasting institutional change. We hope these findings enable state policymakers to better prepare for future crises.

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of IXL Math in an elementary school context, using a randomized-control trial (RCT). This study examined mathematics achievement trajectories of 545 Grades 3-5 students across four elementary schools in a small Michigan school district during the 2022-23 school year. Teachers were randomly selected to use IXL Math (treatment condition) or business-as-usual instruction (control condition) for the winter and spring of the 2022-23 school year. Outcome variables included spring 2023 Renaissance Star mathematics scores (progress monitoring) and spring 2023 M-STEP mathematics scores (state test scores). Prior achievement variables included winter 2023 Renaissance Star mathematics scores and spring 2022 M-STEP mathematics scores. Treatment teachers were also administered a survey focusing on teacher experiences with and reactions to the IXL Math program. District-wide, nine of 11 treatment teachers volunteered to complete the survey. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) with students nested within teachers was used to complete the main impact analyses, while quantitative survey data were analyzed descriptively, and open-ended items were analyzed qualitatively. The results of the main impact analyses showed a significant positive impact of IXL Math on student mathematics achievement, with treatment students gaining approximately 10-points more on the Renaissance Star mathematics assessment than did control students. The effect size of this impact was 0.13 SDs, indicating a small-to-moderate practical impact of IXL Math on student mathematics achievement. Subgroup analyses showed that IXL Math had additional significant positive impacts on Hispanic, special education, ELL, and free and reduced meal (FARMS) students, with the magnitudes of these impacts ranging from 13-17 points. In addition, teacher perceptions of IXL Math were generally very positive, especially in relation to professional development and overall program perceptions. In all, the results of this study provide evidence supporting efficacy of IXL Math in improving student mathematics achievement, especially for student subgroups that historically had started at lower performance levels.

Though early childhood educators have a long history of emphasizing learning through play to foster the development of the whole child, including social-emotional competencies, the proliferation of formal social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula first seen in kindergarten to 12th grade has expanded to prekindergarten. This report presents initial implementation findings of the Positive Emotional Development and Learning Skills (PEDALS) program, an SEL program in prekindergarten classrooms in Western and Central New York and Southeast Michigan. PEDALS is a two-year program that combines the Second Step Early Learning SEL curriculum with comprehensive supports for teachers and site directors. Findings indicate that educators perceived the Second Step curriculum, PEDALS training, and PEDALS coaching support very favorably; strongly believed in supporting children's social-emotional development; and had a strong sense of self-efficacy for doing so. Observations indicated that educators were highly skilled in implementing Second Step lessons; however, teachers used strategies less consistently when children were having a difficult time or experiencing interpersonal conflict. Educators identified PEDALS resources for developing children's social-emotional competencies as the factors that provided the most implementation support; meanwhile, they identified some contextual factors, such as children's challenging behavior and lack of planning time, as the factors that most hindered implementation. Preliminary findings suggest that many preconditions for effective SEL instruction were met. This implementation study is a part of a larger evaluation of PEDALS that also will estimate the effect of the program on children's SEL and executive functioning skills. A second report will be published at the study's conclusion. [Additional funding from the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York.]

Participation in humanities coursework is vital, both for community college students pursuing credentials considered "academic" and for those in career and technical education fields who may not transfer to four-year colleges. Humanities courses help students develop foundational skills; they may also light students' fire for learning as they experience opportunities to think critically and collaborate creatively with peers. In this report, the authors present findings from research on humanities coursetaking at Michigan community colleges conducted as part of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities (MiHumanities) project. The authors analyze quantitative data, including term-over-term enrollment, coursetaking, and credential completion records for students entering Michigan community colleges between academic years 2009-10 and 2017-18, and qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with faculty, administrators, and students at a number of Michigan community colleges. They find that while community college students and faculty identify benefits they associate with participation in humanities coursework, most Michigan community college students take relatively few humanities courses outside of English Composition, and the number of students taking non-composition humanities courses has declined modestly in recent years. The use of streamlined pathways to promote program completion at community colleges makes it challenging for colleges to simply increase the number of humanities courses students are able to take within a program of study. It therefore becomes important for community colleges to make the most of the opportunities that students do have to encounter the humanities. Colleges should implement strategies that position critical thinking, argumentation, and creativity as central to the student experience, regardless of intended course of study. The authors offer ideas on how states, intermediaries, and individual institutions can bolster humanities learning among community college students across all programs of study.

As part of integrated instruction, educators aim to efficiently and simultaneously address learning goals across multiple subject areas like English language arts (ELA) and science or social studies. While studies are beginning to show that this instructional approach can be effective, it is challenging to implement in practice, requiring that educators dedicate considerable energy to sourcing interdisciplinary texts. This study explored whether Newsela ELA could enable integrated instruction and lead to stronger reading outcomes for students in upper elementary school. Newsela ELA is a knowledge and skill-building platform with a vast content library that includes thousands of leveled nonfiction texts and standards-aligned multiple-choice quizzes. This study compared upper elementary classes that used Newsela ELA to support integrated instruction throughout an entire school year to control classrooms within the same school that searched the Internet to find texts for integrated instruction. Fourth grade Newsela users exceeded the state's reading performance average. They demonstrated the equivalent of about three additional months of literacy skill growth more than peers in comparison classrooms when evaluated against national normative growth benchmarks. Newsela classes read 44% more nonfiction texts and engaged in more frequent multiple choice practice than comparison classes. Newsela teachers were less reliant on Google to source classroom texts. Results suggest that Newsela ELA can help make integrated instruction feasible for teachers by making it easier for them to find high-quality texts and for their students to engage in valuable skills practice. Newsela ELA appears to have increased the quality of texts students accessed without adding additional instructional time. [This report was produced by newsela.]

Educators and policymakers across the country have been raising alarms about a growing teacher shortage. In Michigan, teacher shortages were so severe in the 2018-19 school year that 2,500 classrooms were staffed by long-term substitutes--nearly ten times the number placed in classrooms five years prior. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised even greater concerns about the supply of teachers, with several surveys of Michigan educators administered early in the COVID-19 pandemic indicating that a substantial proportion of full-time and substitute teachers are considering leaving the teaching profession due to pandemic-related concerns. In this study, we use administrative data from Michigan to understand how teachers' propensities to leave the public school system, switch districts, or switch schools shifted after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The growth of homeschooling from a somewhat fringe movement during the 1970s and 1980s to a more widespread and socially accepted approach in recent decades has provided a strong foundation of flexible learning models. When Florida's school choice expansion, House Bill 1, was introduced in January 2023, one of its goals was to allow more homeschoolers to participate in the education savings account (ESA) program. But many homeschoolers and homeschool advocacy groups balked at the proposal. Having worked hard to achieve independence, they were loath to be linked to government funding. Even if the program were optional, they feared that associated regulations would eventually extend to traditional homeschoolers. In the end, the bill passed with new language that satisfied traditional homeschoolers by creating a new option for parents to educate their children at home. As states continue to enact and expand education savings accounts, Colleen Hroncich argues that it is crucial that policymakers craft bills in a way that maximizes freedom and minimizes roadblocks.

All students deserve access to a high-quality education and the resources they need to thrive. However, in Michigan this has not been the reality for far too long, particularly for students who are the most underserved. Longstanding inequities have persisted and worsened since the beginning of the pandemic, and Michigan has fallen further and faster than leading states since 2019. Further, pandemic recovery as of 2023 has been woefully inadequate. To improve outcomes for all Michigan students, Education Trust-Midwest (ETM) outlined 10 evidence-backed recommendations as part of the 2023 State of Michigan Education Report. In the Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget Recommendation, Governor Whitmer includes several key investments for students' educational recovery and acceleration that align with those recommendations. This document is intended to highlight these key pieces of Governor Whitmer's education budget recommendation and explore how these priorities, as well as other strategies, can advance equity and excellence in Michigan schools.

Context matters in implementation. The Lenawee ISD (LISD) in Michigan navigated implementation through major changes in its school district's administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. The district highlighted in the impact story experienced leadership change in the District Superintendent position and three school principal positions. The district and LISD credit the sustained use of MTSS to the accomplished system work. The initial cohort of districts reported their ability to respond quickly and proactively to the COVID-19 pandemic due to their teaming and systems being in place. As the LISD implementation team reflects on their MTSS implementation journey to date, several key learnings are generated. [This report was created with the Lenawee Intermediate School District.]

The extent to which pandemic-induced public school enrollment declines will persist is unclear. Student-level data from Michigan through fall 2021 yields three relevant findings. First, relative to pre-pandemic trends, fall 2021 enrollment had partially recovered for low-income, Black, and Hispanic students, but had declined further for non-low-income, White, and Asian students. Second, annual public school exit rates remained elevated for elementary students and accelerated further for middle school students. Third, public school exit is sticky and varies by chosen alternative. Only 21 percent of those who left for private schools in fall 2020 had returned by fall 2021, while 50 percent of those who left for homeschooling had returned. These findings suggest that pandemic-driven public school enrollment declines may persist, and more so among higher income families.

In March 2020, the coronavirus shuttered schools across the United States and the world. In the first year of the pandemic, school systems faced difficult decisions about how to deliver instruction while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of students, families, faculty, and staff. As the months passed, the consequences from this public health crisis became even more apparent, as it disproportionately affected historically marginalized communities and further exacerbated existing educational inequities. Therefore, it is essential to understand how schools and systems respond to crises so we can design and implement changes in policy and practice that will better prepare us for the future. In this research, the authors sought to accomplish this goal by asking the following questions: (1) How did school systems respond to challenges in this early phase of the pandemic?; and (2) And did these responses differ by school sector (charter, private, or traditional public school) and by context? [For "A Year That Forced Change: Examining How Schools and School Systems Adapted to the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Calls for Racial Justice in 2020. Policy Brief," see ED629490.]

Over the past two years, there have been calls for racial justice in nearly every sphere of social and political life, including the field of education. As much of the nation reeled at yet another life violently taken at the hands of a police officer, education workers faced the challenge of responding to local and national demands for policy change at the school and district levels in order to better meet the academic, social emotional, and other personal needs of racially minoritized students. In this report, the researchers share data from our 2020-21 study of how schools in eight districts across the United States responded to racial injustice, as well as parents' satisfaction with these responses. Specifically, they ask: (1) How did school systems in different sectors (i.e. traditional versus charter) respond to heightened attention to racial injustice?; (2) How did these different organizational contexts or other conditions shape response?; and (3) How did parents experience this year of racial reckoning and system responses? [For "A Year That Forced Change: Examining How Schools and School Systems Adapted to the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Calls for Racial Justice in 2020. Policy Brief," see ED629490.]

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 virus shuttered schools across the country and world and calls for racial justice expanded into nearly every sphere of social and political life as the nation reeled at another life violently taken at the hands of a police officer. School system leaders faced difficult decisions about delivering instruction while maintaining the safety and well-being of students, families, faculty, and staff. Moreover, the spotlight on racial injustice also drew attention to the need for educational reform to better serve historically marginalized students with academic, social, emotional, and other special needs. This research explores how educational institutions and their systems responded to two sudden disruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic and increased awareness of racial inequity. This research compared responses from traditional, charter, voucher-receiving private schools and rural and urban districts. The findings were based on 68 interviews with district, school, and community leaders and 46 interviews with parents, plus website, social media, and document analysis across four states and Washington, DC. [For the "School System Responses to Racial Injustice. Technical Report," see ED629491. For the "System Responses to Crisis: Organizational Perspectives. Technical Report," see ED629492.]

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised even greater concerns about a growing teacher shortage. In this study, we use administrative data on more than 140,000 Michigan traditional public and charter school teachers in an interrupted time series framework to understand how teacher attrition and supply may have shifted after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest that Michigan teachers were more likely to leave the profession, less likely to leave their districts, and more likely to switch schools within their district after the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years relative to pre-pandemic trends. Additionally, teachers in low COVID-19 rate communities, as well as those in districts that offered fully in-person instruction at the start of the 2020-21 school year, were more likely to leave the teaching profession or switch districts following the 2019-20 school year compared to teachers in fully remote districts.

As the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides to public and private school students and schools wide-ranging academic and educational supports. This paper provides a historical review of: (1) the federal government's role in education; (2) the creation and passage of ESEA; and (3) ESEA's subsequent development and reauthorizations. The authors next describe ESEA's application to parentally placed private school students. The law makes it clear that private school students are to participate equitably in the benefits that ESEA confers. Upon identifying and describing the challenges to this equitable participation that private school students and stakeholders have faced under ESEA's most recent reauthorization (ESSA), the authors conclude by offering concrete recommendations on how ESEA's next reauthorization can effectively address these challenges.

State Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS) can effectively support the improvement of school-age childcare programs by leveraging Program Quality Assessments (PQAs) alongside structured improvement planning and professional development. Real-world implementations in Arkansas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania underscore the impact and adaptability of the PQA within QRIS, emphasizing its role in fostering a culture of improvement and the importance of investing in well-trained staff to ensure positive outcomes for school-age children.

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest resources in traditional K-12 expenses, such as increasing staff capacity or updating facilities. However, states are also using the funds to spark new initiatives that otherwise may not have been possible and can be replicated across the country. This Policy Guide presents six strategies along with state examples to assist in planning, designing, implementing, and sustaining innovative services and programs. In addition to these strategies, other researchers have developed models for change that put forward other unique approaches, such as allowing for locally driven variation, providing human capital support for ongoing technical assistance and tolerating small-scale risk. The end goal of using these approaches is to design innovative policies that endure and improve long-term student outcomes.

School funding in Michigan is inadequate and inequitable. Michigan does not provide a sufficient base per-pupil amount, nor does the state properly address the cost of educating students with additional needs, especially students with disabilities, English learners, and low-income students. It would cost $4.5 billion to bring districts to funding adequacy based on estimates updated from the 2018 Michigan School Finance Research Collaborative (SFRC) adequacy study. This cost includes an estimated $1.6 billion to introduce universal, no-cost preschool. This report emphasizes the importance of the SFRC's adequacy recommendations by highlighting the following current needs and potential benefits from the SFRC adequacy study: (1) Most Michigan districts need substantial increases in revenue to reach adequate funding; and (2) Certain districts, especially those serving significant numbers of low-income students, are more severely under-resourced.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the primary application that determines access to federal, state, and institutional financial aid. When students fail to complete their FAFSA application, they are less likely to enroll or complete a credential, leaving tens of millions of federal resources for students on the table. Boosting FAFSA completion rates in Michigan is integral in reducing out-of-pocket costs for all Michiganders looking to improve their job eligibility and lifetime earnings. As one of the core priorities of TICAS Michigan and community partners across the state, it is crucial that any implementation of a state-wide mandate of FAFSA completion as a high school graduation requirement removes potential barriers and unintended consequences for outgoing high school graduates. TICAS Michigan's analysis compiles key feedback from community partners across the state to provide insights and student-centered recommendations to help guide policy discussions on solutions to improving Michigan's FAFSA completion rates.