Student participation in summer programming can be an effective way to address students' academic and developmental needs. When well implemented and well attended, summer enrichment programs, academic programs, and employment programs have demonstrated positive outcomes for youth in areas related to program content, including academic achievement…

As federal funding for summer learning as a pandemic recovery strategy phases out, state governments face decisions about their future role in supporting students' access to quality summer learning opportunities. This brief is based on the full report, "How States Are Expanding Quality Summer Learning Opportunities," and summarizes…

This dissertation was prepared to determine if a correlation existed between a student's poverty level and an educational diagnosis of serious emotional disturbance. I hypothesize that students at or under the United States' definition of poverty are more likely to exhibit signs and symptoms of a serious emotional disturbance and therefore be…

Background: This study describes a method for harmonizing data collected with different tools to compute a rating of compliance with national recommendations for school physical activity (PA) and nutrition environments. Methods: We reviewed questionnaire items from 84 elementary schools that participated in the Childhood Obesity Research…

Research information management (RIM) is a rapidly growing area of investment in US research universities. RIM systems that support the collection and use of research outputs metadata have been in place for many years. Globally, the RIM ecosystem is quite mature in locales where national research assessment exercises like the United Kingdom's…

Research Information Management (RIM) is a rapidly growing area of investment in US research universities, comprised of a variety of use cases, stakeholders, and products. This growth has been characteristically decentralized, resulting in silos, multiple systems, and frequent duplication of efforts at many institutions. This report is a two-part…

In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began exploratory data collection for the School Pension Survey (SPS). The SPS is a new data collection of elementary/secondary school teacher pension data collected at the school district level. The SPS was developed primarily in response to public demand for data on teacher and other…

Recent methods have sought to improve precision in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) by utilizing data from large observational datasets for covariate adjustment. For example, consider an RCT aimed at evaluating a new algebra curriculum, in which a few dozen schools are randomly assigned to treatment (new curriculum) or control (standard…

Texans ages 25-34 who earn an associate degree are nearly twice as likely to earn at least $50,000 per year than those who don't earn a degree (24% vs. 13%). Those earning a bachelor's degree or higher are nearly four times as likely to reach this self-sustaining wage (49% vs. 13%). If every eighth grader in Harris County were to earn an associate…

There are nearly 1 million credentials in the United States that students and workers can take advantage of, but how information about these credentials is collected and communicated is oftentimes inconsistent and hard to access. In February, we invited a group of postsecondary and workforce development experts to consider how policymakers can…

Despite enacting well-intentioned policies to improve teacher recruitment and retention, many states continue to face significant staffing challenges, particularly in high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjects such as math, science, and special education. Two years ago, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) set out to explore the…

Accurate, timely data on student outcomes and post-graduate earnings is a critical piece of any state effort to close equity gaps in college access and success, boost attainment statewide, and strategically align education and workforce goals. Unfortunately, in the absence of a federal student-level data network, states and other key stakeholders…

In 2019, the Texas legislature passed a historic education finance bill that included an initiative to add up to 30 days to the school-year calendar. One way districts can do this is to offer a voluntary summer learning program. In 2020, the American Institutes for Research, with support from The Wallace Foundation, launched the six-year Texas…

The education system's purpose is to enable every student to have the knowledge and skills to reach their full potential -- which requires students are college and career ready. But for far too many students, the system is falling short. A recent report found 60 percent of high school graduates were not college or career ready. Closing this gap…

A long overdue, much needed transformation is underway in the higher education system. It started a decade ago, when federal and state policy­makers first began to collect data on what students earn after pursuing a postsecondary education. But new data are fundamentally differ­ent. Unlike broad-based national statistics, such as how much someone…