Situated against teacher demand problems worldwide, rising teacher turnover and declining teacher education enrollment have rendered the state of South Carolina a region commonly described as facing a "teacher shortage crisis." This paper reports results from an evaluation of the Rural Recruitment Initiative (RRI), a state-level teacher…

Background: This study explored the cardiac emergency preparedness of school employees in Illinois, as well as their attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) training. Methods: One thousand two hundred seventy-six school employees completed an online survey regarding their school's cardiac…

This study examines the impact of statewide Restorative Justice (RJ) policy reforms in Michigan and Texas on student disciplinary outcomes and behavior, in light of increasing concerns over the negative effects of zero-tolerance policies. As schools move away from exclusionary discipline practices, this research focuses on three primary questions:…

Schools across the U.S. are facing substantial challenges filling positions (Bleiberg & Kraft, 2022) and are considering solutions to address potential teacher shortages. As of 2022, almost half of the States in the U.S. create or support teacher residency programs (TRPs) through statute or regulation (Education Commission of the States,…

Defined benefit (DB) pension plans incentivize "salary spiking," where sharp increases in pay are leveraged into significantly higher levels of retirement compensation. While egregious instances of salary spiking occasionally make headlines, there is little guidance on the definition of salary-spiking behavior or understanding of its…

This article focuses on higher education access for undocumented immigrants in the United States. Since individual states develop and govern their own policies, the political landscape around college access is always in a state of flux. This is confusing to school counselors, families, and students. We use cartography to make sense of this…

Youth who are impacted by the justice system encounter myriad challenges as they move through and between education and juvenile justice systems. Policymakers play an important role in mitigating these challenges. Challenges include exclusionary discipline practices that increase the likelihood of involvement in the justice system, lack of…

A new Master Plan for Higher Education is long overdue. California's landmark 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education served its time well, but a new plan is needed to better serve today's diverse and economically varied student population. The original plan sought to balance access to higher education with efficient use of state resources by…

In 2019, approximately 91,000 child care and early education (CCEE) providers cared for one or more young children in a home-based child care (HBCC) setting and were "listed" by state or local CCEE agencies (National Survey of Early Care and Education [NSECE] Project Team 2021). Listed HBCC providers experience three predominant CCEE…

Microschools are an alternative to traditional schools for families who might be dissatisfied with local school options. Typically, "microschools" are defined as small, tuition-based schools (serving around 15 students) that are designed to offer a more personalized and flexible learning experience compared with traditional schools.…

This study examines College and Career Readiness (CCR) policy implementation through the lens of "decoupling." We investigate how high schools have jointly implemented Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Industry-Based Certifications (IBCs), and whether there is evidence of "curricular-credential decoupling" via…

Since 2013, most states have passed laws or implemented policies related to evidence-based reading instruction, with many doing so just in the past few years. Most of these laws and policies focus on integrating phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension into high-quality reading curriculum, teacher preparation standards,…

In this inquiry, we examine P-12 music administrators' present and future role in the provision, regulation, funding, and improvement of music teacher professional development (PD). We asked: (1) How do P-12 music administrators' shape PD policies and practices within their school systems? and (2) What might a robust and cohesive suite of PD…

Over the past decade, Illinois has emerged as a national exemplar of how state policy can drive systemic change in civics education. The Illinois Civic Mission Coalition, a pan-ideological alliance of educators, policymakers, and civic organizations, has shaped the state's civics education vision. The coalition built a scalable infrastructure of…

We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children--through duration expansions to the kindergarten day--to better understand how an implicit childcare subsidy affects mothers and families. Exploiting full-day kindergarten variation across place and time from 1992 through 2022 and novel data on state-level…