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This technical report provides detailed information about the sample, survey instruments, and resultant data for the 2024 American Instructional Resources Surveys (AIRS) that were administered to principals and teachers in spring 2024 via RAND's American Educator Panels (AEP). The 2024 AIRS focused on the usage of, perceptions of, and supports for instructional materials used in English language arts, mathematics, and science kindergarten through grade 12 classrooms across the United States. The results are intended to inform policy and education practice related to the use of instructional resources.

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are government-funded accounts typically established for parents who opt not to enroll their children in public kindergarten through grade 12 (K--12) schools. ESAs allow parents to spend funds that the state would have spent for their student to attend their local public school on a broad array of educational expenses, such as private school tuition, curriculum materials, textbooks, tutoring services, technology (e.g., laptops or tablet devices), transportation costs, and school supplies. They give parents an unprecedented amount of flexibility to determine how public funds are used to educate their children. As of July 2024, 18 states have ESA programs, up from four states in 2019. Despite their rapid expansion, there is no empirical research on the effectiveness of ESAs. In this report, the authors describe what existing data can answer about ESAs and what is needed to enable rigorous evaluation of these increasingly popular school choice policies. No state has the necessary program characteristics and data infrastructure to measure the impact of ESA participation on academic outcomes. The authors suggest several recommendations should states want to pursue evaluation in the future.

The number of jobs in computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) is projected to grow rapidly in the United States over the next decade as the demand for workers expands and current CS and IT workers retire. Against the larger backdrop of growth in CS and IT employment and wages nationally, Ohio is looking for ways to grow and diversify its CS and IT workforces. To help support this effort, a RAND research team examined the current state of Ohio's CS and IT workforces and identified ways in which the state might strengthen and diversify these workforces. The team drew on quantitative data from a national survey of households in Ohio and elsewhere in the United States, as well as Ohio administrative records, complemented by qualitative data from focus groups with Ohio students. This brief presents key findings from the research report detailing that study, "Growing the Computer Science and Information Technology Workforces in Ohio. Research Report. RR-A3449-1."

Many states, including Ohio, intend to strengthen and grow their computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) workforces. Jobs in CS and IT are projected to grow in coming years, but it is not always clear how states can expand and diversify their CS and IT workforces. In this report, the authors leverage representative national and state survey data, detailed state administrative data, and focus group data to evaluate how Ohio residents obtain postsecondary CS and IT education, their wages on completion of this education, and factors that facilitate or impede their education and employment in CS and IT. In doing so, the authors aim to help pinpoint ways that Ohio might grow its CS and IT workforces. They also offer suggestions on how state leaders across the United States can grow and diversify these workforces.

This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers that investigated the implementation and effects of the Positive Emotional Development and Learning Skills (PEDALS) program in prekindergarten classrooms in Western and Central New York and Southeast Michigan. PEDALS is a social-emotional learning (SEL) program that combines the Second Step curriculum, a universal curriculum whose implementation provides SEL instruction to all children in a classroom, with two years of supports for site directors and teachers. Supports include screening children to connect them with resources as needed, coaching, collecting and using data to inform implementation, and sustainability planning. Through a collaborative process, RAND and PEDALS partners in each state conceptualized the implementation study and quasi-experimental impact study leveraging a propensity score weighting analysis. This report--the second and final report in a series on PEDALS--summarizes and expands upon implementation findings and presents the results of the quasi-experimental study. This report should be of interest to PEDALS staff in Michigan and New York, early childhood educators who are implementing PEDALS, early childhood educators interested in implementing PEDALS or prekindergarten SEL programs more generally, state and federal policymakers interested in SEL and the effectiveness of PEDALS, and researchers interested in SEL approaches. [Additional funding by the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York.]

In the United States, student social-emotional well-being has become a priority because of concerning mental health and well-being outcomes for adolescent youth. High schools and school districts have responded by expanding mental health and social-emotional supports. However, there is little research to understand the ways in which educational leaders--including superintendents, school district coordinators, and principals--organize practices and policies to support social-emotional well-being for high school students. In this report, the authors seek to close this research gap by presenting findings from a multi-method, multiyear national study on social-emotional well-being initiatives, focusing on high school students. The authors' takeaways include insights about high school staffing, high school--specific practices that support social-emotional well-being, district-level supports, equity-oriented social-emotional well-being supports for minoritized students, and challenges to implementing or maintaining social-emotional well-being initiatives at the high school level. The authors also provide recommendations aimed at school district leaders, high school leaders, and educational policymakers.

In this study, the authors highlight the differences in classroom-, teacher-, and school-level factors in 8th and 9th grade algebra experiences along socioeconomic and racial/ethnic lines using nationally representative survey data from the American Mathematics Educator Study. Several takeaways emerge from this analysis. The analysis shows that highest-poverty schools (i.e., schools in the top poverty quartile) are significantly less likely to offer algebra in 8th grade unconditionally (i.e., without needing to meet certain conditions) for all students or to offer algebra at all compared to lowest-poverty schools (i.e., schools in the lowest poverty quartile). Second, there are significant differences in which factors (e.g., parent requests, teacher referrals) are considered when placing students in advanced math courses in 8th and 9th grade that may affect the access of students from disadvantaged backgrounds to these courses or to more advanced pathways. Third, there are significant differences in 8th and 9th grade math teacher qualifications and classroom activities in math courses, with teachers in highest-poverty schools being significantly more likely to have received alternative credentials, less likely to have completed student-teaching during their preparation program, and less likely to have completed their state's licensure requirements for math. 8th and 9th grade math teachers in highest-poverty schools were also more likely to report that they spend more than half of their instruction time addressing math topics below grade level or addressing disciplinary issues. Mostly similar, albeit weaker, patterns emerge when discrepancies are examined along school racial/ethnic composition. Offering 8th grade algebra in high-poverty school settings (or making it available to more or all students) could help close socioeconomic gaps in algebra enrollment in 8th grade and grant more equitable access to advanced math coursework in the long-run. That said, focusing on the provision of 8th grade algebra alone will likely not remedy the opportunity gaps in access to (and completion of) advanced math courses in high school since the findings suggest that highest-poverty high schools are also significantly less likely to offer college credit-bearing math courses. Further, the findings suggest that increasing the provision of algebra in 8th grade may present three challenges: (1) staffing these courses with qualified teachers; (2) providing strong supports for students who struggle with algebra; and, relatedly, (3) making algebra placement decisions that minimize failure and maximize success for the greatest number of students. Taken together, these findings demonstrate systemic inequities across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines in terms of access to, and experiences in, 8th and 9th grade math courses.

In this report, the authors describe how implementation of restorative practices in educational settings and a juvenile diversion program run by the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) in San Diego County are working to stem the school-to-prison pipeline. The authors focus on how NCRC is serving as an intermediary organization for youth-focused programs, signs of success, opportunities to improve, and insights for other communities.

Teaching deeper learning involves cultivating the critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills that students need to be successful in their college, career, and civic life. It also involves encouraging students to be active participants in their learning. Public schools across the United States often work to help students develop these skills. This report focuses on several elements of students' deeper learning based on fall 2023 and spring 2024 surveys administered to American School District Panel member district leaders. It summarizes how district leaders believe middle and high schoolers' critical thinking skills are best developed in their schools, whether students' input about teaching and learning is collected in these schools, district leaders' examples of their schools' most effective forms of project-based learning, and districts' theories of action for teaching and learning.

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.

A large body of evidence indicates that well-implemented social and emotional learning (SEL) programs improve academic, social, and emotional outcomes for students and educators. Education policy has the potential to influence the high-quality implementation of SEL, from the school district, to the school, to the classroom. Before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, U.S. states enacted supportive policies and conditions to promote SEL in schools. However, curricula that foster the development of social and emotional competences have been one of many controversies about the instructional content and instructional practices schools should use to teach students. Thus, legislators in nine states have proposed bills to prohibit or inhibit SEL instruction in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools. In this report, the authors investigate whether states' SEL policies (for and against) are associated with the implementation of SEL by K-12 schools, as reported by teachers and principals. In their approach, the authors merge the survey data they collected from educators with the results of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning's (CASEL's) nationwide scan of each state's and the District of Columbia's SEL-relevant policies and conditions. The authors also study whether SEL implementation is correlated with two teacher-reported indicators of positive student experience: supportive climate and student interest in learning. The authors' findings show whether state policymakers' SEL-related policies (including legislation and guidance) connect to schools' on-the-ground decisions and implementation, as reported by principals and teachers.

This is the latest report in the State of the Superintendent series, an annual report intended to provide a reliable, recurring snapshot of the U.S. public school superintendency. Since the American School District Panel began in fall 2020, researchers have periodically surveyed superintendents about their job, focusing on job-related stressors, job satisfaction, and intentions to remain in the profession. New for this year was a question about which activities take up the largest share of superintendents' time. The survey revealed a divide between superintendents of small districts (those with fewer than 3,000 students) and large districts (those serving 10,000 or more students). For example, in spring 2024, district budgets topped small-district superintendents' list of stressors, but the intrusion of political issues and opinions into schooling was the most common stressor among large-district superintendents. Meanwhile, superintendents of large districts stated that their most time-consuming activities were external and internal communications, whereas those in small districts spent more time on budgets and on school facility maintenance and operations. The differences are so large as to suggest that the very job of the superintendent--and, therefore, likely the skills needed most to succeed in the job--is substantially different in large (urban) versus small (mostly rural) districts.

Despite the growing body of research on how to support older readers, few studies consider whether U.S. teachers can identify students who have difficulty reading instructional materials across content areas or whether teachers feel like they have the knowledge and resources to support those students. Such information could lay the groundwork for states and school systems to provide better supports to teachers to address students' reading difficulties. In this report, researchers explore U.S. public school teachers' perceptions of students' difficulties with reading in grades 3-8, those teachers' knowledge about how students learn to read, their experiences supporting these readers, and what they need to help students become proficient readers. The findings in this report highlight the importance of including teachers in upper elementary and middle school grades in resource development and allocation and offer guidance to policymakers designing or implementing reading instruction reforms. [The research described in this report was sponsored by the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF).]

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.

More than ever, nations around the world understand that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills are key to driving economic growth and overall competitiveness. A compact between the United States, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the country of Georgia's government sought to bring international higher education to Georgians -- particularly in the area of STEM -- to develop human capital, advance economic growth, and reduce poverty in the country. This effort included a project to ensure and enhance the delivery of high-quality STEM bachelor's degrees in Georgia in four ways: (1) partnering with a U.S. university to offer U.S. STEM degree programs, (2) improving STEM-related infrastructure and technology in partner Georgian universities, (3) assisting partner Georgian universities in reaching international STEM standards and acquiring international program accreditation, and (4) preparing world-class skilled STEM specialists from diverse backgrounds. San Diego State University (SDSU) partnered with three Georgian public universities -- Tbilisi State University, Georgian Technical University, and Ilia State University -- to fulfill these goals. In this report, the authors assess the project's implementation, graduate outcomes, sustainability, and return on investment.

The American School District Panel (ASDP) is a nationally representative set of more than 1,000 school district leaders who agree to take surveys over time. RAND recruits ASDP members using probabilistic sampling methods, which allow researchers to weight survey results to generalize to the national population of school districts and charter management organizations. This report provides technical information about the spring 2024 ASDP survey of district leaders. The authors describe the survey administration and weighting processes they used to produce nationally representative estimates.

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.

Micro-credentials are increasingly being adopted across a variety of industries and countries, including the kindergarten through grade 12 education system in the United States, as a way to identify workers with specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers who investigated the implementation and impact of teacher micro-credentials intended to improve high school science, technology, engineering, and math teaching and learning in Louisiana. The creation, design, and implementation of micro-credentials was undertaken through a collaboration between the Louisiana Department of Education, Louisiana State University, and BloomBoard. RAND researchers designed and executed a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of micro-credentials and an implementation study. The study indicated that teachers' engagement with micro-credentials was relatively low and that micro-credentials did not lead to an increase in student achievement. That said, participating teachers reported that the micro-credentials were well aligned with their courses and supported their teaching practice. Study implications include that micro-credential providers and stakeholders should clearly communicate the value proposition and time requirements of micro-credentials to teachers, as well as provide ample peer and asynchronous supports to teachers for undertaking them.

RAND researchers conducted a study that aimed to fill the information gap on how to successfully implement a statewide financial education mandate by studying the implementation of Nevada's 2017 financial literacy education reform. The study focused on the reform enacted by the Nevada Legislature in 2017, Senate Bill 249, which required that financial literacy education be implemented in third through 12th grade starting in the 2017-2018 school year. RAND researchers examined the following research questions to better understand Nevada's financial literacy reform and potential implications for strengthening financial literacy reforms more broadly: (1) After the 2017 Nevada mandate, how was financial literacy education implemented in schools?; (2) What were the main barriers and facilitators to financial literacy implementation across Nevada's schools?; and (3) How do educators, leaders, and policymakers perceive financial literacy education in Nevada?

More than half of U.S. states have enacted policies to expand financial literacy education in schools with kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) with the goal of improving students' financial literacy skills. Although financial literacy education can be key to building long-term financial capabilities and well-being, more information is needed on how to effectively design state-level financial literacy education requirements. In this report, we examine the implementation of Nevada's financial literacy requirements in grades 3 through 12 using data from a teacher survey, focus groups, interviews, and financial literacy programs. We describe several key takeaways from the implementation process and recommendations for strengthening financial literacy education in K-12 schools. This report should be of interest to state policymakers, education leaders, teachers, and those working to advance youth financial literacy.

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.]

This report describes how six Colorado community colleges used $1.4 million of pandemic relief funding to support individuals pursuing short-term credentials. The authors examined state and college decisions about program eligibility, student eligibility, grant amounts, funding uses, and application requirements as well as outcomes for those receiving funding. Findings from the report can inform future short-term credential funding efforts. [This report was funded by the Colorado Community College System.]

The Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education) was founded to bring the business community together to end the global education crisis. GBC-Education seeks to increase investments in education from the private sector. In 2019, GBC-Education began developing a suite of resources and services to support partners in its network in making more-strategic investments in education that are aligned with their goals for corporate social responsibility and their environmental, social, and governance strategy. This report describes part of GBC-Education's work with four member companies: Schneider Electric, HP Inc., SAP, and Ancestry.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, requires states to use information about the provider cost of child care to inform the setting of payment rates under the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) program. This requirement is consistent with the growing recognition that payment rates for early childhood care and education (ECCE) through CCDF are often too low to fully reimburse providers for their costs. Drawing from a 2020 cost-of-care study for Oklahoma that was conducted by RAND researchers, this updated report will meet the CCDF requirement for Oklahoma to have a current narrow cost analysis to inform subsidy rate setting. This report also provides an opportunity to understand how ECCE provider costs may have changed since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which took place just as the data collection for the 2020 study was completed. The authors adopted a two-pronged approach for this study: (1) collecting program and expenditure data from a sample of licensed providers, purposively selected to capture variation in key provider features that affect program structure and, therefore, per-child cost; and (2) developing a cost model (or calculator) with parameters informed by the information gathered from the sampled providers. The results from this updated report, with cost of care estimates for 2023, can continue to help policymakers in Oklahoma improve the access to and quality of ECCE. [This research was sponsored by the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness Foundation.]

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.

Summer programming is one of the main ways school districts have sought to help students recover academically from COVID-19 pandemic-related setbacks. Authors use a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of kindergarten through grade 12 public school districts to investigate the prevalence and structure of districts' programming in summer 2023. Authors use these results to describe the prevalence of district-offered summer programming in 2023; examine details about elementary and secondary programs, in terms of their eligibility criteria, length, and academic and nonacademic offerings; discuss how districts approached their summer academic instruction; and look at districts' expectations about funding for summer 2024. Because experiences with summer learning programming can vary by district context, the authors examine differences in districts' survey responses by locale (urban, suburban, rural), poverty status (low poverty, high poverty), student racial/ethnic composition (majority white students, majority students of color), and enrollment size (small, medium, large). This research is part of a series intended to provide brief analyses of educator survey results of immediate interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

In an effort to improve high school graduation and college enrollment rates among students who are Black, Latino, or experiencing poverty, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Networks for School Improvement (NSI) initiative and awarded five-year grants to intermediary organizations to develop networks of school teams that work together using continuous improvement (CI) processes. This report details the sample, data, and methodology used in the interim analysis of 25 of these networks to understand how they operate and factors that contribute to strong networks. Data collection activities consisted of a survey of CI team leaders (the Team Connections Survey), interviews with intermediary and district staff, focus groups with CI team members, observations of network events, and a survey of network participants (the Partners for Network Improvement Network Health Survey). This report presents information on the NSI grantees and the instruments used to conduct the surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

The release of such generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools as ChatGPT in 2022 was a major advancement in the field of AI. Two burning questions for kindergarten through grade 12 (K--12) educators are to what extent new generative AI tools will change teaching and whether they will improve learning. The answers to these questions are not yet clear and likely will not be for some time. But to learn firsthand from educators the ways in which AI is beginning to affect teaching and learning in K-12 public schools, the authors surveyed and interviewed educators across the United States. Specifically, the authors surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,020 teachers using RAND's American Teacher Panel in fall 2023. They also surveyed a nationally representative sample of 231 districts in fall 2023 and interviewed 11 leaders from these districts in December 2023 and January 2024. The districts the authors surveyed and the leaders they interviewed 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 authors combine the perspectives of K-12 teachers and district leaders in this report to construct the most comprehensive picture to date of how educators are engaging with AI products and tools for teaching. Teachers reported how they actually use AI tools in their practices, and district leaders reported whether and how they are providing policies, guidance, and training on the use of AI tools.

Public schools in the United States have become more diverse over the past two decades, and there is an emerging push for equity considerations in instruction in public schools across the country. However, there is a lack of clarity around the types of messages that teachers receive about teaching with an equity lens and how teachers enact equitable practices in the classroom. In this study, the authors interviewed 45 teachers of mathematics and English language arts in kindergarten through grade 12 and examined the messages that these teachers reported receiving from various sources as they relate to equity and how teachers operationalize such messages to teach students from traditionally underserved backgrounds (i.e., students with Black or Latino backgrounds, English learners, students with disabilities, and students from lower-income households). Key findings include: (1) Roughly one-third of teachers reported a lack of messaging about teaching traditionally underserved students; (2) Teachers who reported receiving messages about teaching traditionally underserved students perceived messages about culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed teaching, and tailoring instruction; (3) One-third of teachers reported receiving such messages from professional development and peer collaboration opportunities and from leaders at varying levels of the education system; (4) Teacher initiative is a driver for incorporating equitable practices into instruction; (5) Some teachers reported implementing equitable practices into their instruction, such as incorporating diverse perspectives into their curricula; (6) Teachers identified specialists and coaches outside the traditional classroom and professional development as key resources for supporting diverse learners; and (7) Several teachers voiced the need for effective, concrete guidance regarding how to incorporate equity into their instruction.

In April 2021, Idaho became the first state to pass a policy restricting teachers' discussion of race- or gender-related topics. Over the next two years, 17 more states followed suit and passed similar restrictions through state legislatures, state boards of education, state attorneys general, and executive orders. Using nationally representative survey data from more than 8,000 kindergarten through grade 12 public school teachers across the United States in spring 2023, the authors take stock of how classroom limitations on addressing race- or gender-related topics are influencing teachers' instruction and students' learning two years after the first state enacted such a restriction. The authors examine how teachers' awareness of state restrictions and their perceptions of the influence of limitations on their instruction have shifted since spring 2022. Drawing on open-ended survey responses from thousands of teachers, the authors further examine teachers' reports of how limitations are impacting student learning. The authors explore how teachers' awareness and reports of the influence of limitations on their instruction and student learning vary by teachers' state policy context and local political climate.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to significantly affect the American workforce -- both civilian and military personnel -- through job displacement, augmentation, and the need for widespread upskilling. President Biden's October 2023 executive order on AI emphasizes the government's commitment to upskilling the federal workforce in understanding, adopting, deploying, and using AI. Many federal agencies and U.S. Department of Defense entities have published AI guidance documents. Congress is also exploring the implications of advancements in AI in both the general and federal U.S. workforces. This publication is intended to inform the policymakers and leaders who are tasked with preparing civilian and military workers to create, use, and deploy AI in their jobs. The essays in this publication provide overviews of technical and organizational issues, challenges, and actionable insights to help organizations effectively integrate AI and equip personnel with AI-related skills.

The American School District Panel (ASDP) is the newest addition to RAND's American Educator Panels (AEP) and was designed to survey district leaders two times each school year. RAND recruits ASDP members using probabilistic sampling methods, which allow researchers to weight survey results to generalize to the national population of school districts. This report provides technical information about the fall 2023 ASDP survey of district leaders. The authors describe the survey administration and weighting processes that they used to produce nationally representative estimates.

School principals are critical to students' academic achievement, second only to teachers. They are the primary agents of change in their schools, fostering supportive learning environments that enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness. Moreover, they often design and oversee the initiatives and hiring to sustain the positive changes that they help bring about. There is a growing body of knowledge focused on the professional development of principals to help them be more effective in their key functions, such as coaching teachers and developing teachers' leadership skills. But there are few proven models for effective professional development of principals that improves student achievement. Because of this, developers, providers, and funders of such programs are short on evidence for how to align principals' professional learning and support with practices proven to help students achieve. To help address this gap, the United States Department of Education awarded two grants -- an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant awarded in 2014 and a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant awarded in 2015 -- for the National Institute for School Leadership (NISL) to deliver its Executive Development Program (EDP) to approximately 900 school principals across five U.S. states. In addition to providing the EDP, NISL provided one-on-one in-person coaching. The RAND Corporation was the independent evaluator for both grants. RAND's two evaluations, the largest of their kind to date, resulted in several findings that can inform principal training and coaching programs going forward.

Many studies on higher education access have focused on challenges faced by the civilian population. Indeed, there are many obstacles that people face when seeking to enter certificate- and degree-granting programs, including affordability, inequitable admission standards, and family and work demands on their time. Veterans, however, have access to G.I. Bill benefits, which are aimed at supporting veterans interested in attaining education and training after service. In previous decades, many veterans could depend on a partner -- typically a wife -- to care for their children while they attended school after service. However, gendered opportunities and constraints are changing; in fact, women are the fastest-growing population in the veteran community. Because women are more likely than men are to raise children without the support of a partner, the number of veteran single parents will likely rise as veteran demographics change. The G.I. Bill has historically succeeded in helping many veterans train for new vocations, but can the G.I. Bill continue to support veterans as family structures change? To find out, RAND researchers partnered with the Student Veterans of America and conducted semi-structured interviews with ten veteran single parents who are enrolled in higher education and one nonveteran school administrator who is dedicated to supporting student veterans. The interview questions were designed to help the research team investigate barriers and facilitators to veteran single parents' pursuit of higher education; the research team also examined how such policies as the G.I. Bill supported the educational goals of veteran single parents while they parented young children. The findings from this study can help veteran and education policy decisionmakers develop or refine education and training programs in ways that attune with the unique circumstances of veteran single parents.

Drawing on the spring 2023 American Instructional Resources Survey, the authors examine teachers' use of foundational reading activities in their instruction. These activities correspond to the four foundational reading skill domains for kindergarten-through-grade-5 students that are set forth in the Common Score of State Standards: print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency. The authors compare teacher responses by grades taught, characteristics of their schools and classrooms (e.g., students' race or ethnicity, English language proficiency, disability status), and state policy context.

Public debates around whether and how teachers should discuss topics related to race and gender in the classroom have turned classrooms into political battlegrounds. Between April 2021 and January 2023, 18 states passed policies restricting teachers' instruction. Many of these state policies restrict teachers' instruction on topics related to race and gender; some also address how teachers can discuss current events or controversial topics. In the 2023 State of the American Teacher survey, 65 percent of teachers nationally reported deciding to limit discussions about political and social issues in class. This is nearly double the share of teachers who are located in states that have enacted restrictions. This finding raises the question of why the share of teachers who have decided to limit their instruction exceeds the share of teachers who teach in states where they have been explicitly directed to do so. In this report, the authors explore how the impact of state policies restricting teachers' instruction is spilling over into places where no such restrictions exist, and why teachers who are not subject to state-level restrictions are choosing on their own to limit their classroom discussions of political and social issues. The authors also examine how teachers' instructional decisions are associated with their state and local policy contexts and local political climate.

Rising rates of individuals with mental illness in the United States have policymakers, education officials, and medical professionals worried about the need for additional support for struggling college students--and the ability of higher education institutions to provide it. Many colleges have designed and implemented a variety of interventions to ensure that mental health issues do not interfere with students' abilities to persist and succeed in college. In many cases, colleges have begun to integrate mental health supports into wider efforts to proactively connect students with relevant supports to help them address academic and nonacademic challenges. However, some colleges--particularly community colleges--continue to face challenges, such as insufficient resources and capacity to treat mental illness, that prevent them from adequately addressing students' mental health needs. The authors of this report present findings from a descriptive study of ten community colleges in Texas that are working to address student mental health at their institutions. They document the strategies and supports that those colleges have implemented to support student mental health, how the colleges are working to integrate these approaches into the organizational fabric of the colleges, and key challenges to supporting student mental health in a community college setting. They offer a set of recommendations for decisionmakers who are interested in addressing student mental health on community college campuses.

Community colleges and the broader U.S. higher education system are struggling to respond to rising rates of mental health problems among students. Without adequate mental health supports, students risk a wide variety of serious and lasting consequences. Confronted with these issues, federal, state, and college officials lack research guidance about the effectiveness of campus- and system-level mental health responses at community colleges--and how such efforts might integrate with schools' other student support services. In "Understanding How Texas Community College Campuses Are Supporting Student Mental Health," RAND researchers documented their collaboration with University of Texas, Dallas researchers who led the study of ten Texas community colleges' approaches to supporting student mental health. The research team found that while the schools offer a variety of mental health supports, many of these approaches are not evidence-based, and few target students at higher risk of mental illness (e.g., Black, Indigenous, and other students of color; students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning [LGBTQ]; and first-generation college students). The research team also identified various challenges to supporting student mental health, including schools' limited resources and care capacity and students' low awareness of mental health supports.

Researchers use data from the RAND American Mathematics Educator Study surveys of public school principals and teachers to investigate three school structures--referred to as "school opportunity structures" throughout this report--that may affect kindergarten through 8th grade (K-8) students' mathematics learning. These structures are tracking (i.e., grouping students by achievement level), teacher qualifications and assignments, and supports for struggling students. This report is among the first to explore school structures that support students' mathematics learning across the United States and in the four largest states: California, Florida, New York, and Texas. The authors do not examine the quality of mathematics instruction students receive or how much students have learned. Instead, they consider the ways that elementary and middle schools are organized to provide mathematics learning opportunities. Policy recommendations are aimed at helping leaders at the state, district, and school levels reflect on how schools support math learning and how school structures might be improved to set up all students for success in high school and beyond.

This report describes the authors' findings from a scoping literature review on the topic of instructional system coherence. The authors reviewed 77 pieces on coherence published from 1990 to 2023, including articles, reports, books, dissertations, and conference papers. The scope and definition of alignment and coherence have seemed to expand with increased interest, although there appears to be little consensus on the terminology, definition, and key instructional system components to consider. Moreover, multiple ways to study and measure alignment and coherence have emerged and have not yet been catalogued. In part because of these definitional and measurement differences, there is also little consensus on the drivers of coherence or teaching and learning outcomes of more coherent systems. The authors consider overall methods and takeaways from this body of literature.

This report summarizes the findings from a two-year mixed methods evaluation of the effect of the Teach For Nigeria (TFN) teacher training program on whole child development, perceptions of teaching quality, and the school community. This report contributes to a growing body of research on Teach For All organizations across the globe and the extent to which such leadership development and teacher training initiatives can enhance teaching and support whole child development, particularly in the context of a developing country.

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.

Micro-credentials are increasingly being adopted across a variety of industries and countries, including the kindergarten through grade 12 education system in the United States, as a way to identify workers with specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers who investigated the implementation and impact of teacher micro-credentials intended to improve high school science, technology, engineering, and math teaching and learning in Louisiana. The creation, design, and implementation of micro-credentials was undertaken through a collaboration between the Louisiana Department of Education, Louisiana State University, and BloomBoard. RAND researchers designed and executed a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of micro-credentials and an implementation study. The study indicated that teachers' engagement with micro-credentials was relatively low and that micro-credentials did not lead to an increase in student achievement. That said, participating teachers reported that the micro-credentials were well aligned with their courses and supported their teaching practice. Study implications include that micro-credential providers and stakeholders should clearly communicate the value proposition and time requirements of micro-credentials to teachers, as well as provide ample peer and asynchronous supports to teachers for undertaking them.

Achievement in mathematics, particularly in advanced mathematics courses (such as trigonometry, precalculus, calculus, or Advanced Placement courses), is important for long-term college and career success. However, many students--particularly students who are Black, Hispanic, or from low-income households--do not have access to advanced mathematics courses. More broadly, college and career success depends, in part, on access to high-quality supports for postsecondary transitions, but some evidence indicates that these supports might be unequally distributed and place students who are experiencing poverty, who live in rural areas, or who have lower academic achievement levels at a disadvantage. This report presents timely and detailed information from high school principals about their students' access to and participation in mathematics instruction and postsecondary preparation supports nationally and across several states and between different school settings. The report uses nationally representative principal survey responses from the American Mathematics Educator Study, which was fielded in spring 2023 to kindergarten through grade 12 public school principals. The authors provide a national view of high school mathematics course offerings, student assignment to mathematics courses, and postsecondary transition supports, and how access to different supports for learning mathematics and preparation for college and careers varies across school characteristics and across five focal states: California, Florida, New York, Texas, and Washington. A companion report examines students' access to and participation in mathematics learning opportunities in kindergarten through grade 8.

Children and youth have benefited from afterschool programs in terms of academic, physical health, school attendance, promotion, graduation, and social and emotional outcomes. Afterschool programming in general--and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) afterschool programming in particular--is also popular among school officials and parents. To obtain a national picture of why and how principals and district leaders partner with external organizations as STEM afterschool providers, the authors administered a survey to a nationally representative sample of public school principals (kindergarten through grade 8) in November and December 2022. Schools have direct access to youth and families and, therefore, have great potential to influence afterschool choices. The authors surveyed and interviewed school and district leaders to understand their STEM afterschool needs and interests, including the details on how these leaders go about partnering with STEM afterschool providers. The surveys and interviews illuminated how administrators learn about potential afterschool partners, what they look for in a partnership, and why they renew them.

Until recently, many colleges provided academic support to students by requiring students to complete one or more developmental education courses in a subject area before they could enroll in college-level coursework. Now colleges have been experimenting with new approaches that accelerate students into college courses, including corequisite remediation. Corequisite remediation requires that students who are identified as requiring additional academic support be placed immediately into a college course while receiving aligned academic support during that same semester. Research has shown that corequisite remediation has positive impacts on academic outcomes relative to the traditional approach of requiring students to take developmental education courses. However, little is known about how student experiences differ in corequisite remediation relative to developmental education courses. In this report, researchers use student survey and administrative data from a randomized control trial at five community colleges in Texas and qualitative data to examine contrasts in student experiences between college students who were assigned either to corequisite remediation or to standalone developmental education courses. Findings indicated that corequisites improved student experiences in many areas, including: early opportunities to gain momentum; intensity and compression of academic practice; rigor of coursework and expectations; alignment of academic remediation with college coursework; and opportunities for peer learning. Findings also indicated that corequisites reduced student exposure to stigma. Our measures of opportunities for student-centered learning and support for success skills indicated no differences or favored traditional developmental education.

Teach For America (TFA) is an organization that aims to address educational inequity in part through a program of training and placing teachers in U.S. K-12 public schools that have the highest proportions of high-poverty students. In this report, the authors quantify the impacts of Teach For America Indianapolis (TFA Indy) on student and school outcomes in the Indianapolis area. They evaluate the effectiveness, retention, and career trajectories of TFA Indy teachers who work within the Indianapolis area, with comparisons made to other teachers hired during the same period. In additional subgroup analyses, the authors identify differential patterns of TFA Indy teacher retention, promotion, and career progression as a function of whether teachers are White versus non-White. [This study was sponsored by the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation.]

How stressed are school superintendents? What are the reasons for their stress? To find out, authors surveyed 150 superintendents in American School District Panel member districts. In spring 2023, 79 percent of superintendents reported that their jobs were "often" or "always" stressful. Superintendents most commonly cited the intrusion of political issues or opinions into schooling as a source of that stress. However, most superintendents said their jobs are worth the stress and disappointments, and one-half said they are coping "well" with stress. These results provide valuable insights that may be useful to school boards, school board and superintendent associations, and other education organizations to inform professional development opportunities and leadership preparation programs to better focus on well-being.

The urgent need to help students -- and particularly students who are Black or Hispanic -- recover from the negative effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on mathematics learning and access equitable opportunities in mathematics will require that teachers use every available tool to diagnose student learning needs and identify solutions. Teachers' use of data, including informal assessments, standardized or benchmark assessments, classroom observations, attendance, demographic data, instructional strategies on standards-aligned content, and growth reports, could be a valuable tool in addressing these challenges. In this report, researchers provide a look at the student data to which Florida mathematics teachers have access and use to identify students in need of support, and whether teachers are adequately supported to use student data effectively in their daily instruction. [For "Learn Together Surveys. 2022 Technical Documentation and Survey Results. Research Report. RR-A827-9," see ED626092.]