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…

Every state's juvenile justice system is meant to rehabilitate young people -- and high-quality education is a key part of that goal. Young people who are incarcerated do not lose their rights to educational opportunity and have the same protections as their peers in traditional school settings, including access to interventions like special…

This brief is part of the Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, and Empowering Action initiative. The brief describes the emerging practice of direct admissions, including how the practice has been designed, what outcomes it has produced, and considerations for policymakers debating the implementation of a direct admissions program in their state…

Long-standing discriminatory practices and systematic barriers have perpetuated inequitable access to early childhood resources and opportunities for families living in the United States due to race and ethnicity, income, geographic location, primary languages, gender, and other characteristics. To adequately understand whether child care is…

In 2013, California enacted an ambitious school funding reform--the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The LCFF fundamentally overhauled the state's prior K-12 education finance system, which studies found to be inequitable, irrational, and highly centralized. More than a decade after its enactment, a growing body of research indicates the LCFF…

Quality non-degree credentials can lead to good jobs and family-sustaining wages. But not all non-degree credentials lead to good outcomes -- and when they don't, they entrench economic inequalities that impact people of color and women. National Skills Coalition's new report "The Non-Degree Credential Quality Imperative" encourages…

Language education policy in Arizona has been on a rollercoaster over the last five years. Between 2019 and 2024, the state shifted from strict English-only enforcement to loosening restrictions and encouraging dual language approaches, then back to strict English-only enforcement. In this forum piece, we use approaches from critical discourse…

This brief is part of the Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, and Empowering Action initiative. This brief summarizes the research on dual enrollment programs--programs which allow high school students to enroll in college coursework through a partnering college or university--and offers policymakers a strategy to increase college enrollment and…

All children -- regardless of race, class, gender, or national origin -- deserve to fulfill their potential and have the opportunity to thrive. Over the last several years, Texas children and youth have faced serious challenges and disruptions to their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children of color, in particular, were disproportionately…

The overwhelming majority of families rely on public education for a foothold in the American Dream, making it perhaps the most consequential expression of America's core value of opportunity for all. State policymakers are the constitutional stewards and primary funders of America's public schools. They have the awesome responsibility of guiding…

State summative assessments play an important role in measuring student learning and guiding educational improvement efforts, despite their limitations. But there is growing momentum in individual states and nationally to rethink these assessments with an eye toward reducing time spent on testing and increasing the tests' instructional relevance.…

State policymakers are confronting well-documented intersecting crises -- medical, economic, and racial -- with especially dire implications for educational equity. State education leaders face a moral urgency to both understand and respond to the challenges students are experiencing and to do so in ways that address burgeoning equity gaps.…

The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the United States economy and left a record number of individuals unemployed. In slightly under five months, more than 54 million people applied for unemployment for the first time, while the economy contracted by 33 percent, the largest dip in history. While the impact will likely be short-term for some career…

The massive challenges created by 2020's global pandemic--and a renewed resolve to address educational equity--have sounded an urgent call to act on behalf of students and their future. For more than a decade, ExcelinEd has been at the forefront of a movement to transform education across America. This playbook describes ExcelinEd's broad range of…

To prepare for the future, state policymakers can learn from the past -- specifically, the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Recession. Drawing on lessons learned from both time periods, the authors of this brief set out to answer the following questions: (1) What lessons from past economic crises might help state policymakers and advocates prepare…