The Wallace Foundation's Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative is a six-year initiative that The Wallace Foundation launched in 2017 to explore whether and how children benefit when schools and their out-of-school-time (OST) programs partner to improve social and emotional learning (SEL), as well as what it takes to do this…

Many studies have documented a large decline in students' mathematics achievement during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The question facing school districts now is how to help students recover. Since fall 2020, RAND researchers have repeatedly surveyed and interviewed district leaders who are members of the American…

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The…

Much research has noted the misalignment between kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) academic standards and curriculum materials used in classrooms. Many states and education organizations have been pushing for greater use of standards-aligned curriculum, especially during the past several years. In this report, the authors share results…

Providing clear guidance to teachers is not a straightforward task for school systems: Teachers get information about what to teach and how to teach from many sources, some of which are beyond the control of school systems. When teachers get different, even conflicting, messages about what and how to teach from various sources, they likely…

During the school year leading up to summer 2015, summer leaders in Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Rochester made concerted efforts to integrate their summer learning programs into the core priorities and operations of the larger school district as a strategy to increase sustainability. This report examines these efforts and their impacts. The…

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not…

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not…

The U.S. energy sector has become highly innovative in developing and applying new technologies. These innovations often require higher-paid, more-highly skilled labor, yet many employers in the region report that they have difficulty filling jobs, particularly for medium-skilled (or semi skilled) positions that require only a high school…

The impetus for this report is new evidence that state department of education work to align instruction with standards may make a difference for teachers' practices and understanding about their state standards. Using data from the RAND American Teacher Panel, the authors found that Louisiana teachers were more likely than other teachers to…

Many states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which emphasize "deeper learning" skills, such as mastery of core academic content, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. But can the new tests being developed to align with the CCSS be used to promote deeper learning and high-quality classroom instruction?…

The Hewlett Foundation commissioned RAND to review research about the effects of assessment and to summarize what is known about assessment as a lever for reform. To explore the likely influence of new assessments on teaching practice and the conditions that moderate that relationship, researchers conducted a series of literature reviews. The…

As Iraq's Kurdistan region develops rapidly, it is creating jobs that require a solid education and technical skills. The government has launched an ambitious reform of basic and secondary education to increase its quality and has expanded opportunities for tertiary technical and university education. But expansion of secondary vocational…

The leadership of Qatar is greatly invested in its K-12 education reform, "Education for a New Era," because it views education as the key to the nation's economic and social progress. This study, one of a number of RAND studies that trace and document the reform process in Qatar, was designed to assess progress made in the first years…

In 2002, the RAND Corporation launched a project to understand how educators are responding to the new accountability requirements in California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania--three states that represent a range of approaches, regions, and student populations. The researchers aimed to identify the factors that enhance the implementation of SBA…