This qualitative multiple case study explored district, school, and classroom level leadership support for school-family-community (SFC) partnerships in Title I elementary schools located in distant small towns or rural areas. Over five decades of research support the benefits of schools actively partnering with families and communities to promote…

This project aims to gain insight into the mechanisms by which schools in highly challenging environments avoided learning loss--or even improved--during the pandemic. Using a unique dataset covering multiple levels of school, health, and environmental data, we examine which factors led schools to 'beat the odds' when it comes to learning…

In this case study, learn how the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) partnered with 12 schools in Jefferson County, Alabama, to form networked improvement communities focused on promoting meaningful, sustainable change. Their goal was simple yet bold: Harness improvement science and continuous improvement strategies to accelerate eighth- and…

"Changing Course: Public School Enrollment Shifts During the Pandemic" is an analysis of student enrollment trends in public schools during the pandemic (2019-20 to 2021-22 school years). The numbers showed more than 240,000 students enrolled in charter schools, a 7% increase--while district public schools lost approximately 1.5 million…

State policymakers in the United States have in recent years experimented with new initiatives to change the procedures used by public institutions to assess and assign academically underprepared students to non-credit developmental education (or remedial) courses. This study explores whether the most recent developmental education reform in…

This report, the first in the Economic Vitality and Education in the South (EVES) series, provides state-by-state information on more than 20 critical data points associated with the education-to-workforce pipeline. The report looks specifically at the 17 states in the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) region: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware,…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact, implementation and costs associated with a one-semester elective lab course in 9th grade, Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, which seeks to improve students' reading achievement, particularly for those from economically disadvantaged communities. This study used three cohorts…

This chartbook is the 14th version to be produced for the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). The Chartbook describes the diversity of the Appalachian Region on a host of demographic and economic measures and provides an important annual view of the area and its people. The data contained in the…