Research says that teacher diversity benefits all students, regardless of race or Ethnicity. However, while the majority of students in the U.S. are of color, only about 20% of teachers are of color. Increasing the racial and cultural diversity of the teacher workforce takes a statewide commitment to collecting and analyzing educator workforce…

In the wake of COVID-19, the California legislature mandated that local educational agencies (LEAs) develop detailed Learning Continuity and Attendance Plans (LCPs) to address student learning and progress during the 2020-21 academic year. This brief summarizes results of an analysis of nearly 1,000 LCPs from public school districts across the…

As the COVID-19 crisis disrupted schooling, recovery efforts to ensure educational continuity in California included the adoption of Senate Bill 98, which mandated local educational agencies (LEAs) to complete Learning Continuity and Attendance Plans (LCPs). These plans act as critical snapshots of sensemaking in the midst of crisis; however,…

Publicly funded adult health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had positive effects on low-income adults. We examine whether the ACA's Medicaid expansions influenced child development and family functioning in low-income households. We use a difference-in-differences framework that exploits cross-state policy variation and focus…

States take a wide range of approaches to Student Learning Objectives (SLO) assessment selection. This "Ask the Team" brief helps states consider the trade-offs between approaches that offer more teacher choice and those that offer better comparability across SLOs. The brief identifies four common approaches to selecting SLO assessments:…

Background: In the context of Texas of the USA, House Bill 5 signifies a major policy shift requiring entering high school students starting in fall 2014 to choose an endorsement, like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) being one of them, to provide students with earlier exposure to a coherent course sequence. As we barely…

The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement initiative was launched in 2014 to provide a uniform standard for the regulation of distance education across states in the United States. The system established by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (NC-SARA) allows willing post-secondary institutions to participate…

Background: By 2014, all states implemented concussion laws that schools must translate into daily practice; yet, limited knowledge exists regarding implementation of these laws. We examined the extent to which concussion management policies and procedure (P&P) documents of New York State school districts comply with the State's Concussion…

As of 2011, 31 million adults in the United States had some college credit but had not earned a postsecondary credential, defined in this brief as a near-completer. This brief provides an overview of the 2017 near-completer policy landscape and a detailed review of three states implementing innovative outreach to this population. State example…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process by which children and adults learn to understand and manage emotions, maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. This is the second in a series of four related reports about what is known about SEL programs for students ages 3-8. The report series addresses four issues raised…

A growing number of states are interested in tracking the readiness of children entering kindergarten. In 2010, just seven states (Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, and Vermont) collected Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) data for the purposes of aggregating data at the state level. Since this time, most states report…

This brief is based on the report "Encouraging Social and Emotional Learning in the Context of New Accountability," which describes how states might measure and promote social and emotional learning (SEL) in their accountability and continuous improvement plans. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have an opportunity to broaden…

Objective: States increasingly create promise programs to increase college enrollment and degree attainment. The objective of this study was to understand the experiences of adult learners using the Tennessee Reconnect Grant (TN Reconnect) as they transitioned to becoming college students. Methods: Drawing upon interviews with 23 adult learners,…

When the novel coronavirus forced school buildings to close, causing a massive disruption in the delivery of these services, it exposed the extent to which schools function as an essential component of a comprehensive health system, particularly for children in low-income communities. In response to the closures, state and federal decision-makers…

Most states continue to lack a comprehensive set of policies to improve teacher knowledge of evidence-based early reading methods. This excerpt from NCTQ's "State of the States 2021: Teacher Preparation Policy" examines state policy trends that govern requirements for early reading instruction knowledge in teacher preparation and…