We explore ways in which statistics can be used to understand disease spread and support decision-making by governments. "Past performance does not guarantee future results"--we hope. We discuss and show examples from the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded COVID-Inspired Data Science Education through Epidemiology (CIDSEE) project.…

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the quality of data from educational testing programs. These data were previously used for many important purposes ranging from placing students in instructional programs to school accountability. In this article, we draw from the research design literature to point out the limitations inherent in…

During the pandemic, the economic way of thinking was extraordinarily useful, leading to a quick consensus among economists of widely differing political persuasions on many issues of pandemic policy. Yet speaking to politicians, bureaucrats, and the public revealed many ways in which the economic way of thinking was foreign and sometimes…

The main thrust of this paper is to explore factors from the business sector, which could inspire school leaders in terms of issue/problem formulation during their decision-making process. This conceptual paper examines diachronically and conceptually the issues of uncertainty, not only in terms of context and decision-making, but also having in…

This article assesses the risk of two COVID-19-related changes necessary for the expert review of the REF2021's Impact criterion: the move from face to face (F2F) to virtual deliberation; and the changing research landscape caused by the COVID-19 crisis requiring an extension of deadlines, and accommodation of COVID-19-related mitigation. Peer…

There have been countless challenges faced by American families with school-aged children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the many challenges specifically relating to education has been ensuring children had access to a challenging academic curriculum. Whether children have been educated remotely or in hybrid settings, or whether they have…

For the last decade or more, circulation numbers of physical materials have declined in academic libraries across the United States. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered society and daily life, not to mention library functions. In particular, fears of contagion via physical surfaces and transmission by contact led many…

In the summer and fall months of a "typical" year, many education leaders would receive reports of student performance on annual summative state assessments administered each spring. Using these data, administrators begin a process of sense-making -- identifying areas that need support and integrating new information offered by the data…

Distance learning has been adopted as an alternative learning strategy to the face-to-face teaching methodology. It has been largely implemented by many governments worldwide due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implication in enforcing lockdown and social distancing. In emergency situations distance learning is referred to as…

Decision-makers in school psychology are presently engaged in the process of determining how to, if possible, move forward with conducting mandated psychoeducational evaluations of students in schools during the pandemic. Whereas prominent organizations within the profession (e.g., American Psychological Association, National Association of School…

The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts' choices of learning modality--whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction--over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning mode…

This article examines the experiences and coping strategies of four university middle-managers during the unprecedented time of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the research approach of autoethnography to reflect on our experiences and decision-making processes. To reflect on how we managed the rapid change and moved from…

The sheer scale of the IELTS [International English Language Testing System] testing infrastructure and its unique position in the world of international education dictated some of the particular challenges that the IELTS Partners (British Council, IDP Education and Cambridge Assessment English) faced after the closure of test centres during the…

The spread of COVID-19 has caused major disruptions in the higher education space, and colleges and universities faced difficult decisions on how to reopen their campuses. At Indiana University Bloomington, student exposure to other students was reduced by leveraging the existing academic calendar and strategically managing course enrollment…

In higher education, the discursive establishment of 'faculty' vs. 'administrator' creates a dualistic, hierarchical structure, informing relationalities between/within ourselves and faculty. As administrators, we found/find ourselves in relational encounters, entanglements of material-discursive bodies, that we were/are a part of producing. In…