In this Policy Memo, the author considers the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's newest effort, focused on "Networks for School Improvement," and how this initiative can learn from the Foundation's own past initiatives as well as from research evidence more generally. The author worries that in K-12 education, the Foundation has…

Children's Campaign examines child well-being across the state and identify data-driven solutions to improve the lives of Colorado's kids. In 2017, the Campaign was relentless in their efforts to ensure every chance for every child. Highlights for the year include: (1) Colorado's child poverty rate fell to 13 percent in 2016--its lowest point in…

As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the U.S. Department of Education made available almost $3 billion for the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER). Governors across the nation must be strategic with their use of GEER funds to support education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief…

This brief describes the types of college promises that exist in the state of California. In doing so, we summarize existing research on this topic. Furthermore, we provide a framework to study the California Promise Program in community colleges in California. We use publicly available data to highlight key aspects of our proposed framework: What…

A pedagogical model called student-led academic teaming takes a different approach to personalizing instruction and meeting the multifaceted needs of each student without increasing teacher fatigue and burnout. With student-led academic teaming, students take increased ownership and accountability for their own and their peers' learning, relieving…

Gifted girls of color represent a potentially untapped resource for increasing and sustaining a diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Girls of color possess unique mathematics and science gifts and talents that can remain unrealized if not addressed before middle school. Culturally responsive STEM…

In 2014, as part of the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) Ohio Demonstration, Lorain County Community College launched Students Accelerating in Learning (SAIL), a comprehensive student success program that is substantially improving persistence and graduation rates among low-income students. Given the program's results, Lorain has…

In October 2014, U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan announced the Obama administration's new "education equity initiative," explaining that the president could not "continue to wait" for Congress to act "on behalf of vulnerable children." The centerpiece of this initiative was a 37-page "Dear Colleague"…

Australia and New Zealand have participated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment since 2000. Reading literacy was the main focus of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000, and at that time both countries' students generally performed well above the…

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures have further exacerbated the unique challenges that youth in foster care faced long before the pandemic and now put them at even greater risk of falling behind in school. Students in foster care are disproportionately impacted by school closures, since they often lack access to the technology and…

Schools must address the impact of the prolonged closures due to COVID-19 on the linguistic and academic development of California's dual language learners (DLLs) and English learners (ELs). Fully 44 percent of school-aged California children speak a non-English language at home; for children ages 0-5, the proportion is around 60 percent. While it…

One high-leverage strategy rooted in a strong research base--the revitalized tutoring center--provides a wealth of opportunity to students who may be otherwise underserved. This embedded, open-all-day tutoring center supports collaborative teacher teams by using peer tutors and community volunteers. By centralizing resources and providing supports…

Charter schools' autonomy and flexibility provides them with the opportunity to find ways to close the performance gap between students with and without disabilities, but deep-seated, systemic challenges often cause individual charters to struggle to do so on their own. For cities with an established charter sector, a city-wide, collaborative…

Community colleges have made great strides in advancing student success and completion during the last decade. But not all students have benefited from these efforts equally. According to the Lumina Foundation, the postsecondary attainment rate for adults in the United States is around 40 percent. Yet, there are still large gaps in attainment…

Interventions that affect children's vocabulary development focus on the quality of language as well as quantity. Children need opportunities to talk, use vocabulary words, and respond to adults' questions. Adults need to create opportunities to talk, provide quality feedback on children's language, and use a lot of new vocabulary repeatedly in…