Research has shown that male teachers in early childhood settings play a crucial role in providing male role models, offering diverse perspectives, and helping children develop positive gender-role stereotypes. Therefore, it is crucial for Early Head Start programs to increase the representation of male teachers to ensure that all children can…

Strong, caring relationships with adult and peer mentors have long played a crucial role in helping young people thrive academically and overcome challenges they face while at school and at key points in their educational journey. These mentoring relationships for students can be provided at school through volunteer programs embedded in the school…

The project's primary goal was to develop, test, and disseminate a model workforce development curriculum for Cooperative Extension Professionals (CEPs). The curriculum, which we have named Future Opportunities for Rural Workforce and Rural Development (FORWARD), is designed to support CEPs working to address workforce development issues in rural…

School finance equity is an essential component of educational equity. In an equitable system, public schools receive funds to provide a high-quality education for all based on the needs of students, not on the property wealth of communities. Funding inequity also disproportionately affects students of color. Districts serving the largest…

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad-hoc committee to examine learning and development in out-of-school time settings across the K-12 age span. To inform its deliberations, the committee held three public sessions, on October 19, 2023, February 8, 2024, and April 18, 2024. This publication summarizes the…

Nearly three in five undergraduate students on U.S. campuses experience basic needs insecurity, which means they lack access to stable sources of food, housing, or other living or educational essentials, like affordable childcare or technology. Basic needs insecurity unequivocally jeopardizes student success, increasing the likelihood of leaving…

This demonstration brief provides teaching and learning stories from districts and schools implementing PBIS with an integrated systems focus and is organized across the following areas: (a) the context of the school/district, (b) the changes made in the systems, (c) the impact of the changes made in the systems, and (d) next steps to improve the…

State financial aid is a critical piece of college affordability for students from low-income backgrounds. Nearly three quarters of all students attend college in their home state - which is typically a requirement for state-based financial aid - and first-generation and students from low-income backgrounds are even more likely than their peers to…

This brief describes the findings of a study into the effects of a project-based learning (PBL) social studies curriculum, Project PLACE, on social studies and literacy achievement among second graders in low-income communities. The study by University of Michigan and Michigan State researchers found the PBL curriculum led to gains in social…

Across the country, students are unwittingly leaving postsecondary credentials on the table without institutions awarding the associate degrees they have earned. A disproportionate number of those students are from populations that have been historically excluded from or overlooked in higher education, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous students,…

This project seeks to answer questions about the effectiveness of early childhood programs in meeting their important goals, paying careful attention to the effectiveness of program variations (especially in regard to particular demographic and economic target groups). This review will be guided by two overarching questions: (1) How effective are…

For more than a year, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) conducted research in New Mexico, including interviews, site visits, document review, and new analyses of data provided by the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED). The purpose of the study was to provide New Mexico leaders a research perspective on the challenges facing education…

Recent stories raising the alarm about students' poor reading skills and calling for greater attention to the "science of reading" represent the latest round in the ongoing "reading wars." Going back at least as far as the 1950s, scholars, pundits and policy makers have debated which teaching strategies are most successful at…

Online education was the exception rather than the norm of the English school system prior to March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in two periods of government-directed school closure from March to July 2020 and again from January to March 2021. These closures necessitated a transformation to online education almost overnight. Although much…

For adults with low incomes and potential first-generation college-goers, enrolling in college can be challenging. The U.S. Department of Education-funded Educational Opportunity Centers (EOCs) provide supports to help navigate some of the barriers to enrollment, including assistance with completing college and financial aid application processes,…