In the United States, teacher shortages in high-needs fields such as special education have considerable negative impacts on the academic and functional achievement of students with disabilities. Furthermore, strategies such as the employment of undercertified teachers to serve as teachers of record and fill vacant positions raise questions about…

Congress passed three coronavirus relief acts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus, including $189.5 billion for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds intended to provide vital support to States, local educational agencies, and schools. This review was performed to determine whether the Yukon-Koyukuk…

Congress passed three coronavirus relief acts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus, including $189.5 billion for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds intended to provide vital support to States, local educational agencies, and schools. This review was performed to determine whether Lower Kuskokwim…

Texas has made a substantial investment in teacher residencies--a research-based approach to high-quality, practice-based teacher preparation. At the direction of the legislature, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) launched this large-scale expansion of residencies to improve access to high-quality preparation and thereby help mitigate ongoing…

Outstanding Higher Education Act (HEA) Title IV federal student loan debt exceeds $1.6 trillion and is owed by about 45 million borrowers. In August 2022, the Biden Administration announced it would invoke the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) to cancel, on a one-time basis, up to $20,000 in qualifying…

The federal government has prescribed nutritional requirements for school meals since the authorization of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in 1946. Such requirements have changed throughout the course of history. Current law requires the Secretary of Agriculture to prescribe "minimum nutritional requirements" based on…

This handout expands upon and consolidates information from the 2021 "RESTART & RECOVERY: Leveraging Federal COVID Relief Funding & Medicaid to Support Student & Staff Wellbeing & Connection" resource. It includes guidance about how states can utilize federal relief funding to expand school Medicaid to support student…

This article traces the history of census undercount and its importance to civil rights. The Constitution mandates a census and calls for Congress to use the results to apportion seats in Congress and the Electoral College. A substantial undercount in the census will misallocate congressional and electoral college votes. More recently,…

This study examines whether the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE-IT grant program identifies and funds institutions that improve faculty gender equity. By using matching procedures and a two-way fixed-effect event study, we find that when universities received ADVANCE-IT grants, their proportion and headcount of women faculty as full-time…

Federal Student Aid (FSA) processes more than 17.6 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms each year to help students pay for college and provide students with approximately $120.8 billion in grant, work-study, and loan funds. The FAFSA Simplification Act of 2021 required FSA to overhaul its systems and processes to…

One way to help frame a focus on problems instead of things is the Grand Challenges concept, which has been used in many other fields to date. Grand Challenges are an articulation of large-scale, complex problems that may be addressed through coordinated and sustained efforts but require long-term effort. Often, the articulation of Grand…

STEM education helps prepare K-12 students for careers in STEM fields to enhance innovation and global competitiveness. About 10 million K-12 students were enrolled in public schools in rural areas in 2022, the most current year of data available. The August 2022 Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act includes a provision for…

Israelis consistently secure European Research Council (ERC) grant funding at higher success rates compared to peers from most participating countries. Israeli scores in the ERC metric within the Adjusted Research Excellence Index (AREI) have been significantly above average and double those of the next highest (Switzerland) -- yet on other AREI…

This document contains a model policy for state departments of education to create a Closing the Digital Divide in Education Act. The purpose of such an Act is to: (1) Raise awareness of federal and state broadband subsidy programs to ensure eligible residents, particularly those in households with K-12 students, are aware of the ability to…

The present study examines the differences between public baccalaureate institutional expenditures and Pell Grant recipient graduation rates at high and low Pell Grant recipient graduating institutions. IPEDS data were analyzed, including instructional, academic support, student services, institutional support, and Pell Grant recipient 6-year…