A current study is exploring the impact of additional literacy classes on average-performing middle school students, aiming to enhance their high school performance and college readiness. In a suburban district with diverse demographics, students were offered extra literacy courses if they scored below the 60th percentile in 5th-grade literacy. While the initial analysis suggested no significant impact, further investigation revealed contrasting effects based on race. Black students experienced notably negative effects, especially in predominantly white schools, seen across both state tests and national measures. Conversely, white, Latino, and Asian students showed uncertain but potentially positive impacts. These findings stress the need for tailored approaches in educational programs, indicating potential harm for initially average-literacy students. The study highlights the complexity of policy outcomes when implemented at school levels, urging policymakers to consider diverse student populations in policy design and implementation. It also underscores the importance of clear communication about policy intent and the unintended consequences of categorizing students based on criteria like cutoff scores.

New research investigates early absenteeism in elementary school, particularly in kindergarten, exploring factors contributing to chronic absence. While existing studies focus on individual and family-level drivers like disengagement and family structure, limited attention has been given to how early childhood programs might impact absenteeism. Analyzing a national dataset, a study reveals that attending center-based care before kindergarten associates with lower chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. However, this link isn't observed when attending such care during the kindergarten year, suggesting that pre-kindergarten experiences shape school attendance more than concurrent reinforcement during kindergarten. Chronic absenteeism affects California's educational and social systems, leading to significant costs and limiting children's potential. The findings emphasize the influential role of early childhood programs in reducing absenteeism, urging a shift from identifying contextual factors to implementing early interventions to counteract this detrimental behavior. This study's insights offer valuable data to inform truancy reduction initiatives and discussions on preventive measures.

A new study delves into teacher perceptions of financial incentives within the context of the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program, examining how rewards influence teacher behaviors and participation. It explores data from a TIF-supported program offering rewards for various achievements. Research shows diverse reactions among teachers based on payout sizes, valuing fairness, linkages to effort, and performance. Larger awards elicited more positive responses and influenced ongoing participation. However, the findings imply these incentives might draw high-performing teachers, raising questions about their impact on reshaping the teacher workforce. Teachers emphasized the importance of fair, linked-to-performance payouts to sustain their engagement in the program. The study highlights crucial design elements for incentive programs, advocating for attainable maximum awards, fairness considerations, credible performance measures, transparent eligibility criteria, and clear payout rules. It urges further research using representative data to comprehend teachers' responses to different incentive combinations over time, essential for refining educator incentive programs.

Students often interrupt their college education for various reasons, such as engaging in professional internships or taking voluntary breaks known as gap years or semesters. While past research has extensively explored the positive labor market outcomes of internships, little attention has been paid to their academic effects, or the impact of gap years, on students. In a comprehensive study examining over 100,000 undergraduate students across 463 U.S. institutions, internships emerged as beneficial, enhancing study habits, GPAs, satisfaction with coursework, future educational aspirations, and career ambitions. Conversely, gap years were linked to negative academic consequences, decreasing study habits, GPAs, satisfaction with college experiences, aspirations for further education, and interpersonal skill development, while increasing the preference for part-time employment post-graduation. The study suggests that institutions should promote and expand internship programs to support academic and career growth, while discouraging or providing disincentives for students considering gap years, highlighting the need for students to evaluate the academic implications before taking such breaks.

Educational institutions are increasingly revamping teacher evaluations, integrating student performance measures and classroom observations. LAUSD’s shift in evaluation systems and Vergara v. California’s ruling against certain teacher employment statutes spotlight this transformation. However, research across six urban districts reveals shifts in the role of value-added measures in decision making. Principals find value-added data problematic due to its infrequency, complexity, and limited applicability to teachers in untested subjects. Instead, they value the transparency, timeliness, and specificity of teacher observation systems, which provide comprehensive insights into teaching practices for all educators. While acknowledging differences between value-added and observation systems, research also emphasizes the advantages of teacher observation systems in informing timely and specific decisions. Despite concerns about observation systems’ time-intensive nature and the recent legal implications, these frameworks offer enhanced transparency and actionable feedback, potentially compensating for the limitations of value-added measures. Overall, the rise of observation systems signifies a positive step in leveraging data for informed human capital decisions in education.

Immigration has surged in the U.S., leading to increased numbers of Limited English Proficient (LEP) children in public schools. States like North Carolina and Virginia have seen a doubling of LEP students in the last 15 years, with over 10% of students classified as LEP. The linguistic diversity among LEP students is vast, with Spanish, Indo-European, Asian, and Pacific Island languages being the primary spoken languages at home. This diversity in classrooms can have both positive and negative effects on student achievement. A study conducted in North Carolina middle schools from 2006 to 2012 found that an increase in LEP peers, about two students per classroom, correlated with a decline in mathematics and reading scores for non-LEP students, suggesting a negative impact. However, the mix of languages spoken by LEP students did not significantly affect the achievement of non-LEP students. For LEP students, having more peers speaking the same language positively affected reading but negatively affected mathematics achievement. The study suggests separating LEP and non-LEP students for language arts may benefit both groups, but the effects on mathematics instruction are less straightforward and might adversely affect LEP students.

The change in California's kindergarten entry age, moving the cutoff date from December 2 to September 1, brought about transitional kindergarten for affected children born in the transitional period. This impacted both those who delayed entry and those who didn't. Older entrants might show better readiness and learning skills compared to younger peers, a reason why parents often choose to delay their child's entry ("redshirting"). However, the benefits of this additional year might vary based on available activities. The shift also influences non-delayed children due to grade age averages affecting peer dynamics and learning. In a study assessing this change's impact on crime, incarceration rates dropped by 10-13% among those directly and indirectly affected by the entry age policy. While both groups benefitted, the reduction in crime was smaller for those delaying entry, hinting at potential harms from late entry, perhaps due to less learning during the "redshirt" year or lower educational attainment. This emphasizes early education's long-term benefits, supporting transitional kindergarten's role. Yet, caution is needed in generalizing these findings, considering the availability of alternative pre-kindergarten programs today, absent in earlier decades, possibly lessening the negative impacts of delayed entry.

The shortage of women in STEM fields has sparked considerable attention due to its impact on the STEM workforce. Despite being the majority in colleges, women remain a minority among STEM degree holders, leading researchers to focus on their underrepresentation in these critical fields. The prevailing literature primarily examines the influence of college faculty gender on STEM outcomes, neglecting the crucial pre-college setting's role in shaping students' STEM choices. This NSF-funded study, using data from North Carolina public schools and universities, delves into the impact of the gender composition of high school math and science teachers on students' decisions to pursue STEM majors in college. Findings indicate a notable positive effect of a higher proportion of female math and science teachers on the likelihood of female students declaring and graduating with STEM degrees, particularly among those with strong math skills. This influence doesn't extend to male students, suggesting that schools with more female STEM teachers positively disrupt stereotypes, making STEM fields more appealing specifically to high-skilled young women without significantly affecting their male counterparts. The research highlights the significance of early educational opportunities challenging gender stereotypes in math and science, potentially cultivating a larger cohort of women pursuing STEM careers and challenging outdated perceptions about STEM being unsuitable for women.

Enrichment programs, such as arts education, often face cuts in K–12 schools where language arts and math take precedence due to standardized testing. Despite this, evidence supports the long-term benefits of the arts on college access, academics, and civic engagement. Integrating arts into school curricula is seen as a solution, yet there is limited research on its widespread implementation. Inner-City Arts collaborates with LAUSD through Learning and Achieving Through the Arts (LATA), where teachers learn various art forms alongside students, supported by professional development linking arts experiences with literacy. LATA aims to enhance English language skills, especially for marginalized groups like English Language Learners (ELLs), by promoting arts-based learning, teacher training, and teacher-artist collaborations for innovative lesson plans. A study comparing LATA-integrated schools with standalone arts instruction revealed significant gains in standardized English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency, particularly among ELL students, emphasizing the vital role of arts integration in academic achievement. Policymakers and investors interested in educational reform should prioritize integrated arts models and teacher development, as demonstrated by the LATA approach, which offers a holistic pathway to improve academics applicable in diverse urban districts.

Government initiatives aim to enhance walking and cycling to school, prioritizing safety through programs like Safe Routes to School (SRTS). While SRTS effectively improves public health by encouraging physical activity and reducing injuries, few studies address the potential savings in student transportation costs for districts and families. Schools spend billions on student transportation, and hazardous walking conditions often necessitate busing short distances, known as hazard busing, adding costs without resolving safety issues. Our study highlights that investing in engineering improvements to enhance safety near schools could reduce long-term busing expenses. Real-world examples, like Austin's pedestrian bridge, demonstrate substantial savings after eliminating the need for busing. The collaboration between cities, schools, and parents is crucial to prioritize safety improvements. However, this shift requires alignment among different agencies, revisions in reimbursement formulas, and community involvement to ensure successful transition and utilization of safer infrastructure by families, preventing the burden of transportation costs from simply shifting to them.

The persistence of high school dropout rates, especially among low-income and minority students, remains a concern despite recent declines. Targeting student engagement as a key prevention method, studies examine whether in-school arts participation can reduce dropouts. Research based on Texas high school data suggests that students engaged in arts courses face a lower dropout risk. However, caution is necessary as this correlation doesn't confirm causation. Factors like student background and unobserved characteristics may influence both arts participation and dropout behavior. While controlling for various student and school factors reduces dropout risk associated with arts participation, it doe not eliminate it entirely, suggesting a potential causal link. Presently, evidence doesn't explicitly advocate for investing solely in arts education to tackle dropout rates. Yet, it warns against abrupt cuts in arts budgets, stressing the need for a deeper understanding of how robust arts programs engage at-risk students. Despite fiscal pressures leading to cuts in arts education, mounting evidence, including controlled trials, underscores the value of arts in public school curricula, urging policymakers to consider these findings when making decisions.

Addressing the academic achievement gap among minority and low socioeconomic status students, especially in majority-minority states like California and Texas, has gained attention regarding language variety as a potential factor. A study reviewed by Educational Policy presents recommendations for state policymakers based on a Texas Legislature-commissioned study. This study urges recognizing students who speak language varieties other than standard English as Standard English Learners (SELs), highlighting their unique educational needs. The expert panel offers five key recommendations: enhancing educators’ understanding of language diversity, teaching strategies for students to acquire standard English, integrating language variety into curricula, and fostering a tolerant environment among stakeholders. The study emphasizes the necessity of increasing teacher capacity to identify and support SELs in classrooms, proposing considerations and strategies for states or local education agencies (LEAs) to design effective programs and policies. The report advocates for legislative and administrative actions to equip teachers for specialized instruction to meet the needs of SELs and ensure policy success.

The PACE Directors extend our thanks and best wishes to Bruce Fuller, who resigned as a Director of PACE at the end of 2014. Bruce joined PACE in 1996, and guided us through a pivotal decade. Under his leadership PACE’s work on school choice, pre-K education, and other topics had a profound impact on education policy debates in California and beyond. Bruce will continue as Professor of Education and Public Policy at UC-Berkeley, and as a vital contributor to the public conversation on education and other policy issues.

Research suggests that the school environment significantly influences teachers' career choices, effectiveness, and student outcomes. A study, using data from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools over ten years, explores how the school context impacts teachers' improvement over time. It finds that teachers in more supportive environments exhibit greater growth in effectiveness compared to those in less supportive schools, revealing considerable variation among teachers' improvement rates. The research identifies differences between schools in the average rate of teacher enhancement over a decade. By examining the impact of the professional environment, as indicated by teacher survey responses on dimensions like order, collaboration, leadership, development, trust, and evaluation, the study concludes that teachers in schools rated higher in these aspects display a 38% higher improvement after ten years compared to those in lower-rated schools, a substantial portion of the typical ten-year growth. These findings challenge conventional beliefs about teacher effectiveness and highlight the pivotal role of the organizational context in fostering or limiting teacher development, advocating for nurturing supportive school cultures and ongoing teacher learning to elevate the overall quality of the U.S. teaching force.

The high school dropout issue carries significant societal and personal costs, impacting unemployment, lower income, mental health, and crime rates among dropouts. Despite its gravity, there's a lack of comprehensive data on effective interventions or policies addressing this problem. Existing research primarily identifies risk factors and describes interventions, but lacks strong experimental evidence. A systematic review examined characteristics of dropout interventions and effective policy/practice components. It highlighted a mismatch between known risk factors and intervention focus, often centered on individual student-level efforts. The review suggested that many dropouts disengage from school over time, urging interventions tailored to diverse subgroups. However, current studies lack subgroup-specific intervention analyses. Researchers propose a tiered prevention approach, yet empirical evidence supporting this method remains scarce. While experts advocate school-level interventions, empirical research doesn't offer clear guidance on matching interventions to specific risk factors or subgroups. This gap challenges the integration of dropout interventions into comprehensive frameworks, hindering effective and efficient solutions.