Frames shape public opinion on policy issues, with implications for policy adoption and agenda-setting. What impact do common issue frames for racial equity in education have on voters' support for racially equitable education policy? Across survey experiments with two independent representative polls of California voters, framing effects were…

The authors sought to identify the prevalence of food insecurity in a community college district during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team also investigated the association food insecurity had with academic performance. A sample of 238 individuals completed the survey, including a demographic questionnaire and the Adult Food Security Survey Module, a…

Many factors contribute to the achievement gap in the U.S. As an intervention to help narrow the gap, tutoring presents a potentially powerful solution. Decades of research suggest that tutoring is an effective, evidence-based approach to improve student success, with effect sizes ranging from 0.4. to 2.0. As many school systems in the U.S. move…

Educational inequality due to family socioeconomic status (SES) has been the focus of both public dialogue and education research in the United States for many years. The current study aims to understand how educational inequality due to family SES has changed in the United States. Specifically, the study focuses on the changes in achievement gaps…

Using panel data from three successive collective bargaining (CBA) negotiation cycles from 277 California school districts in a difference-in-differences framework, I investigate the relationship between changes in CBA restrictiveness and racial and economic achievement gaps over time. I find that achievement gaps in California are smaller where…

The American School Counselor Association Closing-the-Gap Action Plan template is a tool created to help school counselors identify educational gaps and track interventions. We applied a transcendental, phenomenological qualitative research method to explore school counselors' use of the template to advocate for students. Our findings demonstrate…

This study addresses the important yet underexplored question of whether the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, which emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving, as well as the computer-based assessments aligned with the Common Core, have facilitated or hindered learning for students with disabilities. By analyzing administrative…

Artificial photosynthesis is a promising approach to generate commodity chemicals using abundant chemical feedstocks and renewable energy sources. Despite its importance, affordable and effective hands-on classroom activities that demonstrate artificial photosynthesis and teach key concepts, especially for primary school students, are lacking.…

On March 13th, 2020, a proclamation declaring a national emergency concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak would require all educational institutes to execute an indefinite distance learning plan. Instructors immediately pivot while providing students with rich and relevant learning experiences. This study compared overall…

School boards remain one of the most powerful forces in American education, helping to set curricula, evaluate teachers, and direct hundreds of billions of dollars in education funding. Yet teachers' unions play an outsized role in determining who serves on these boards. If the interests of teachers are perfectly aligned with those of students,…

Due in part to the challenges associated with learning a new language, English language learners (ELLs) typically begin school with lower achievement than their non-ELL peers, and those achievement gaps often close slowly if at all. A separate body of research shows that achievement is associated with social-emotional learning constructs like…

In California, Black students have markedly lower academic achievement than their White peers and Black students are also more likely to experience exclusionary discipline, such as suspensions (Cano, 2020, Losen & Martinez, 2020). What can be done to mitigate these racial disparities in schools? In this brief, we investigate whether increasing…

Research Findings: The Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) provides formative assessment of five domains of learning and development that are essential for school success. The current study provides an approach for establishing thresholds of readiness using the DRDP in relation to California's early learning expectations. DRDP data…

A socioeconomic status (SES)-related achievement gap in mathematics emerges prior to school entry, and increases in elementary school. This gap makes implementation of demanding mathematics standards (e.g., the Common Core State Standards) an ongoing challenge. Early educational intervention is a strategy for addressing this challenge. A…

Strong evidence indicates that student expectations of success in mathematics decline in middle school. The goal of the present study was to examine whether the expectations of teachers and the quality of the student-teacher relationship play a role in these declines. A total of 201 (86 boys, 115 girls) Latino/a students (M = 11.0 years) and their…