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The purpose of the "Iowa K-12 & School Choice Survey" is to measure public opinion on, and in some cases awareness or knowledge of, a range of K-12 education topics and school choice reforms. EdChoice and the Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education developed this project in partnership with Braun Research, Inc., which conducted the online interviews and live phone call interviews, collected the survey data, and provided data quality control. This report explores the following topics and questions: (1) In which direction do Iowans think K-12 education in the state is heading?; (2) Do they believe district schools are adequately funded?; (3) How would they rate the various types of schooling options in the state in general and in their area specifically?; (4) What sort of schooling options would they prefer for their own children?; (5) How supportive are Iowans of the various types of educational choice programs?; (6) What are their views on Iowa's current educational choice program?; and (7) How has the coronavirus pandemic changed their children's education? [This report was produced with the Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education.]

North Carolina is home to a growing and evolving K-12 education landscape. The state experienced a 21 percent increase in its public elementary and secondary school enrollment since 2000, with that figure projected to grow by another 4 percent by 2028. The state has garnered attention for its emphasis on individualized education and implementation of federal funding plans. The state is also home to other growing K-12 education sectors. More than 100,000 students in North Carolina attend charter schools. North Carolina's 184 charter schools are found in all corners of the state, with more than 20 additional charter schools expected to come on board in the near future. An even greater number of private schools (28) started in North Carolina during the 2019-20 school year. And even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which nudged a flurry of parents to apply for homeschooling status with the state in preparation for the Fall 2020 semester, roughly 150,000 students in North Carolina were homeschooled. North Carolina currently offers several school choice programs that help families access private schooling and other education options. The state's Opportunity Scholarship Program, launched in 2014, provides low-income students with vouchers worth up to $4,200 per year to attend private schools. North Carolina also offers an additional avenue of financial assistance to students with special needs in the form of its Personal Education Savings Account Program, which is a recently launched K-12 Education Savings Account (ESA) providing up to $9,000 per year to qualifying students to be used for a variety of educational and therapeutic uses both in and outside of the classroom. This brief studies North Carolina's school choice programs by surveying K-12 parents in the state. It focuses on the ESA and Opportunity Scholarship programs, as well as how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed parents' educational experiences in the state. In analyzing responses to the survey, it identifies families using these programs to understand who uses them, why parents decide to use these programs, and how parents feel about them. It also provides responses from parents of students enrolled in private school but not participating in an ESA or voucher programs (non-choice private), traditional public schools, charter schools, and homeschool.

Transportation, or the lack thereof, can be a huge barrier to families exercising choice. Simply because a state authorizes the creation of charter schools or grants vouchers to families looking to send their children to private schools doesn't mean that those children will actually be able to attend those schools. They have to be able to get there safely, on time, and ideally after spending as little time on the bus as possible. Policies vary from state to state, district to district, and school sector to school sector. Whether or not students are provided with transportation can vary based on their proximity to their school, their age, the type of school they attend, the existing public transportation infrastructure in the city in which they live, and other factors. Policy plays a role as well. In some locations, laws provide guarantees for students that they will have free transportation to the school of their choice. In others, students are on their own. In this report, the authors combed the statutes and regulations in all 50 states to determine exactly how each handles the transportation of K-12 students to schools of choice, often via inter-district public school choice, charter school choice and private school choice. McShane and Shaw summarize statutes and identify some limitations and challenges that states face as school choice options continue to grow and families continue to need and expect transportation solutions.

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on questions we asked about schooling experiences and educational choice reforms. We also include breakouts to show similarities and differences among racial/ethnic communities. [This report was co-produced with Braun Research, Inc.]

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on questions we asked about how comfortable parents are returning their children to K-12 school buildings during the pandemic, which schooling options parents prefer at this time, and how parents grade their schools' handling of COVID-19. We also include breakouts to show differences in Black, Latinx and white parents' experiences and opinions.

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on questions we asked about families' homeschooling experiences and their opinions about homeschooling during the pandemic. We also include breakouts to show similarities and differences among racial/ethnic communities.

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on the second wave of questions we asked about public opinion on K-12 education during the COVID pandemic. We also asked respondents their opinion on educational choice reforms and policies. [For the Wave 1 report, see ED609688.]

Optoelectronic tweezer-driven microrobots (OETdMs) are a versatile micromanipulation technology based on the use of light induced dielectrophoresis to move small dielectric structures (microrobots) across a photoconductive substrate. The microrobots in turn can be used to exert forces on secondary objects and carry out a wide range of micromanipulation operations, including collecting, transporting and depositing microscopic cargos. In contrast to alternative (direct) micromanipulation techniques, OETdMs are relatively gentle, making them particularly well suited to interacting with sensitive objects such as biological cells. However, at present such systems are used exclusively under manual control by a human operator. This limits the capacity for simultaneous control of multiple microrobots, reducing both experimental throughput and the possibility of cooperative multi-robot operations. In this article, we describe an approach to automated targeting and path planning to enable open-loop control of multiple microrobots. We demonstrate the performance of the method in practice, using microrobots to simultaneously collect, transport and deposit silica microspheres. Using computational simulations based on real microscopic image data, we investigate the capacity of microrobots to collect target cells from within a dissociated tissue culture. Our results indicate the feasibility of using OETdMs to autonomously carry out micromanipulation tasks within complex, unstructured environments., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

In April 2020, the QUality Assessment and REProducibility for Instruments and Images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi) initiative was formed. This initiative comprises imaging scientists from academia and industry who share a common interest in achieving a better understanding of the performance and limitations of microscopes and improved quality control (QC) in light microscopy. The ultimate goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to establish a set of common QC standards, guidelines, metadata models, and tools, including detailed protocols, with the ultimate aim of improving reproducible advances in scientific research. This White Paper 1) summarizes the major obstacles identified in the field that motivated the launch of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative; 2) identifies the urgent need to address these obstacles in a grassroots manner, through a community of stakeholders including, researchers, imaging scientists, bioimage analysts, bioimage informatics developers, corporate partners, funding agencies, standards organizations, scientific publishers, and observers of such; 3) outlines the current actions of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative, and 4) proposes future steps that can be taken to improve the dissemination and acceptance of the proposed guidelines to manage QC. To summarize, the principal goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to improve the overall quality and reproducibility of light microscope image data by introducing broadly accepted standard practices and accurately captured image data metrics., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, shortened abstract, Co-Lead Authors: Glyn Nelson and Ulrike Boehm, Corresponding author: Roland Nitschke

This is the seventh edition of EdChoice's "Schooling in America Survey." Each year, researchers poll the general public on a range of issues in K-12 education. In 2019, the polling results are based on a nationally representative sample of the general public that includes 1,810 online and phone interviews. Over time, EdChoice has increasingly cast a spotlight on the opinions and attitudes of parents of school-age children and public school teachers. EdChoice continues to poll greater numbers of those stakeholders in this edition. Researchers surveyed 435 parents who currently have children in elementary or secondary schools, as well as an additional 394 parents who no longer have school-age children. They also obtained completed online surveys from 601 current public school teachers. This year, researchers collected additional interviews from those born in 1981 or later--beyond the general public sample--to obtain more robust oversamples of Generation Z (N = 637) and Millennials (N = 617). Researchers asked their standard questions about schooling experiences and educational choice reforms, but went further to learn how people feel about hot-button K-12 subjects that seem to polarize lawmakers and advocates, including busing, teacher protests, and children's use of technology. Findings reveal the following: (1) Parents' schooling preferences do not match their kids' actual educational experiences; (2) People like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) best, especially when they are open to all families; (3) People do not know what schooling costs--public or private--but most still think public schools need more money; and (4) Younger generations are most supportive of busing students to schools outside their assigned district, and current public school teachers really oppose it. [The team at Braun Research assisted in project development. For the 2018 report, "2018 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Parent and Teacher Experiences, Accountability, and School Choice," see ED600702.]

This report synthesizes information about West Virginia's private schools from a survey conducted by EdChoice. Education savings accounts (ESAs) allow parents to withdraw their children from public district or charter schools and receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized savings accounts with restricted, but multiple, uses. Those funds--often distributed to families via debit card--can cover private school tuition and fees, online learning programs, private tutoring, community college costs, higher education expenses and other approved customized learning services and materials. Some ESAs, but not all, even allow students to use their funds to pay for a combination of public school courses and private services. Six states have ESA programs. From September to December 2018, EdChoice administered a first-of-its-kind survey of West Virginia private school leaders. This brief provides a descriptive analysis of the results of that survey, including tuition and fees, the number of open seats, regulatory concerns, and interest in educational choice programs. [The survey and report was written in partnership with the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.]