Beginning with the 2020/21 school year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) began an ongoing effort to collect and analyze literacy screening assessment data from schools and districts participating in certain state grants to inform improvement efforts. Grantee schools and districts that provide literacy…

Federal guidance allows Head Start grant recipients to apply to the Office of Head Start to shift funding (i.e., convert enrollment slots) from Head Start services for preschool-age children to Early Head Start services for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers. Yet scant information is available about how grant recipients navigate the conversion…

The 2021-2022 Study builds on the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES). This report includes information on the 2021-2022 Study design and presents key findings from the study's spring 2022 data collection on Head Start children and families. The tables in this report describe children and families in spring 2022 as COVID-19…

On February 23, 2024, the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor (the Departments) published a final rule in the "Federal Register" (89 FR 13814) that defines the sixth performance indicator--effectiveness in serving employers--as "Retention with the Same Employer" in the second and fourth quarters following a participant's…

This study explores learner engagement with Advanced Computational Thinking (ACT) in the New Zealand digital curriculum. "Advanced" in ACT refers to an expansive, transdisciplinary, and future-looking understanding of computational thinking (CT). ACT promotes CT beyond narrow modes of problem-solving (abstraction, algorithmic thinking,…

This brief highlights how to use culturally and linguistically aligned (CLA) strategies to support multilingual learners within an multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework including how to use a CLA lens to inform instructional adaptations for multilingual learners who require intensive intervention. The brief reviews the use of the CLA…

In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), big data (BD), and digital transformation (DT), analytics students should gain the ability to solve business problems by integrating various methods. This teaching brief illustrates how two such methods--Bayesian analysis and Markov chains--can be combined to enhance student learning using the Analytics…

It has been well documented that children's development is enhanced within the context of supportive parent-child relationships (Mortensen & Mastergeorge, 2014). Research also indicates that any daily activity of a child holds the potential for multiple learning opportunities if parents and other caregivers are supported in their capacity to…

This qualitative case study examines how board members make sense of federal accountability policies and how their sensemaking shapes their use of assessment data as a policy instrument. Deviating from previous work on practitioner sensemaking, the participants' interpretations of assessments did not align with their ensuing use of the data.…

This study explores the development and implementation of a professional development intervention for teachers in data-use as part of a whole school self-evaluation (SSE) process. A review of literature relating to professional development in general and data-use in particular informs the key features of the intervention which is tested in five…

In the fall of 2009 and in the spring of 2012, supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we designed a course "Phylogenetic Analysis and Molecular Evolution" (PAME), the first cross-listed course across three different colleges (College of Arts and Sciences,…

Feedback is an essential component of learning environments. However, providing feedback in populated classes can be challenging for teachers. On the one hand, it is unlikely that a single kind of feedback works for all students considering the heterogeneous nature of their needs. On the other hand, delivering personalized feedback is infeasible…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of public policy decisions in each state that contribute to public higher education funding levels and funding distributions across states and…

Since 2003, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has produced the annual State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report to broaden understanding and enable analysis of state-level and national funding and enrollment trends over time. The final section in each SHEF report has focused on the effort and capacity of states…

Background and Aims: The fastest growing group of students with disabilities are those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). States annually report on post-high school outcomes (PSO) of exited students. This study sought to fill two gaps in the literature related to PSO for exited high-school students with ASD and the use of state data and…