School systems across the nation have used some form of instructional feedback, such as traditional and standards-based grading systems, to document students' academic performance. The urgency of developing an alternative grading system emerged because grades determined by teachers using the traditional grading system were unreliable. This study…

This study aims to examine the performance of students who completed the North Carolina Math 1 EOC assessment. The provided test scores are for students in middle school and high school who identify as Asian, Black, Latinx, and White, and are specifically for the North Carolina Math 1 EOC assessment. This applied research study focuses on Math 1…

Prior research indicates that the availability of school counselors--as measured by school counselor-to-student ratios--predicts desired student outcomes in high schools. Less is known about the impact of school counselors in elementary and middle schools, where school counselors take on a broad array of responsibilities related to youth…

Context: The use of educational technology for improving K-12 math education has expanded dramatically recently. ASSISTments (Heffernan & Heffernan, 2014), a widely used digital platform, has seen its use in schools increase significantly from 800 to 20,000 teachers over the past two years. A review of evidence-based online programs by the…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a Computerized Adaptive Reading (CAR) program on a cohort of middle school student's reading proficiency scores as measured by a state standardized end-of-year assessment. The scores used for the study were taken from the SCReady end-of-year assessment for reading proficiency over the three years the…

The "defund the police" movement has recently called for the removal of police--or school resource officers (SROs)--from schools. This call is driven by concerns that SROs may heighten student contact with criminal justice or lead to disproportionately harsh disciplinary consequences. This study uses linked disciplinary, academic,…

There is fear that adolescents have limited control over their digital technology use. The current research examines longitudinal (Study 1) and daily (Study 2) associations between U.S. adolescents' self-control and digital technological impairment and use. Using a large sample (N = 2,104; Wave 1: M[subscript age] = 12.36, 52% female, 57%…

We use information on the charter school choices made by North Carolina families, separately by race, who switched their child from a traditional public school (TPS) to a charter school in 2015-16 to explore how such choices affect racial segregation between schools and racial isolation within charter schools. We find that the movement of white…

The WCPSS [Wake County Public School System] Student Survey is administered each year to measure students' perceptions about their learning experiences. Approximately 70,000 students from grades 5 through 12 responded in the spring of 2019. The majority of students had positive perceptions of their schools and teachers, were hopeful about their…

Whether students of color are more or less likely to be identified as having disabilities than similarly situated students who are White in U.S. states with histories of de jure and de facto racial segregation is currently unknown. Unadjusted analyses of large samples of students attending elementary and middle schools in the U.S. South yielded…

This technical appendix provides additional information about the sample, data, and estimation strategy used for a series of American Educator Panels (AEP) Data Notes published by the RAND Corporation in 2019. The Data Note series is intended to provide brief but incisive analyses of teacher and school leader survey results that may be of…

Decades of research have showcased the inequitable exclusion of Black students in urban middle schools via out-of-school suspensions. Black students exhibit the highest rates of suspensions when compared to their White peers according to the 2013-2014 Office of Civil Rights database. Urban middle school teachers are typically placed in high-stress…

While scholars have studied racial bias in the application of out-of-school suspension and its influence on arrest and incarceration for decades, the mechanism that produces juvenile delinquency remains unclear. Guided by general strain theory, this study considers racial group differences in the evaluation of suspension as discriminatory, and how…

Using student-level administrative data from North Carolina, we explore whether exposure to same-race teachers affects the rate at which Black students receive exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, in-school suspensions, and expulsion. We find consistent evidence that exposure to same-race teachers is associated with reduced…

We examine the impacts of early college high schools, small schools of choice located on college campuses. These schools provide a no-cost opportunity for students to earn college credit--or a 2-year degree--while in high school. Using rich administrative data on multiple cohorts of students and quasiexperimental methods informed by the…