Policymakers and practitioners alike have increasingly positioned instructional materials as essential for achieving high-quality, standards-aligned instruction. State education agencies, school districts, and schools have looked to instructional materials to signal what to teach and to what depth for students to be on track to meet college- and…

U.S. public school students have lost out on considerable mathematics learning since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. Public schools can take many steps to improve mathematics achievement, but to help students who are most at risk, those steps will need to keep equity front and center by focusing…

The authors of this report build on past studies by using survey data from a nationally representative sample to examine how middle and high school English language arts (ELA) and mathematics teachers use and perceive their instructional materials in terms of engagement, challenge, and usability. In addition, the authors use interview data to…

In the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, researchers estimate that the teachers of roughly 50 million K-12 public school students have had to transition to remote instruction. Emerging research about the impact of the pandemic on schooling consistently reveals that school closures have presented significant hurdles to…

Just as teachers' perceptions of instructional materials influence what they do with those materials, school leaders' perceptions of instructional materials influence their decisions about how and how strongly to support teachers' material use. The authors address a gap in existing literature by identifying what school leaders regard as key…

Since March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented stresses on the public education system in the United States. At every level, from the U.S. Department of Education down through local districts and individual schools, the pandemic has presented formidable challenges. Many of these challenges have been…

This technical report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the American Instructional Resources Surveys (AIRS) that were administered to principals and teachers in spring 2020 via RAND's American Educator Panels. The AIRS focused on instructional resources used and supported in English language arts,…