The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) administers the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), which is a mandatory survey of all public schools and school districts in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. This Data Snapshot provides an overview of the CRDC for the 2020-21 school year.

Following a set of state meetings held throughout fall 2020, the Virginia Education Assessment Collaborative (VEAC) decided to offer a mini-conference in November 2020 to round out offerings and to buttress conversation around topics of high need and interest to Educator Preparation Providers (EPPs). Leveraging the familiar process of the…

The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) administers the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), which is a mandatory survey of all public schools and school districts in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. To support school districts' timely submission of accurate data, OCR takes steps…

With the aim to provide teachers with more specific, frequent, and actionable feedback about their teaching, we explore how Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to estimate "Instructional Support" domain scores of the CLassroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), a widely used observation protocol. We design a machine learning…

In working with the youngest learners, drawing from their own lived experiences to inform mathematics instruction is a critical piece for engaging with as well as supporting students in mathematizing their world (NAEYC and NCTM 2002, 2010; NCTM 2020). In the interaction described in this article, four-year-old children used mathematics to examine…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds programs providing services designed to assist children with a range of delays and disabilities in achieving individualized developmental and functional goals. There are two types of programs. Part C Early Intervention is for children ages birth-2, and Part B Preschool is for children…

Over one-third of preschoolers with disabilities are fully included in the classroom with their typically developing peers and another large percentage receive some instruction in the inclusive classroom. In order to support young children and increase the likelihood of the desired learning and behavior outcomes, teachers must use individual data…

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That's not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study…

This document includes guidance, considerations, and resources for state staff and local practitioners who are determining Preschool Special Education eligibility remotely, due in part to COVID-19. To accomplish this, many states are now exploring a variety of approaches such as teleconference, videoconference, and sharing information and video…

Reported percentages of young children who engage in challenging behavior is estimated between 10% and 20%. This percentage is even greater for children with disabilities. Not surprisingly, when young children with challenging behavior do not receive services and supports early on, they can experience negative social and emotional outcomes long…

Improving the quality of teaching and instruction takes time and planning and may be costly and require intensive work. This is particularly true when trying to make improvements among multiple preschool sites, because preschool systems often lack a cohesive infrastructure for supporting high-quality implementation of curricula and teacher…

"Which preschool programs best prepare students for kindergarten?" "Which students from which schools need remediation classes in higher education?" "How successful are college graduates in the workforce by major or credential?" These are just a few of the questions that can be answered by a robust longitudinal data…

One tool that many families own, across the globe, is a basic mobile phone. The use of low-cost basic mobile phones for educational purposes in humanitarian settings is critical where access to connectivity and higher cost devices is limited. The portability of mobile phones, combined with their communication features, offers multiple uses to…

Students who are slow to respond to traditional instruction and intervention require intensified intervention. Visual Activity Schedules (VAS) are an evidence-based type of visual support that provide sequential organization of the steps for an activity or skill. VAS can be aligned with individual student needs, including behavioral support. VAS…

The Center for Integration of IDEA Data (CIID) is an Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)-funded technical assistance (TA) center helping state education agencies (SEAs) to integrate their Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) data with statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS). Data integration increases the value of…