Key Findings from the American Educator Panels
Like so many dedicated educators, policymakers, and researchers across the globe, the RAND American Educator Panels (AEP) team has been working to support teachers and school leaders who face an unprecedented set of challenges as they respond to COVID-19. RAND is committed to using the panels to understand how schools are navigating this new territory and to document disparities in students’ access to and participation in educational opportunities—disparities that will almost certainly grow as a result of the pandemic.
With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, RAND is one of the first to launch nationally representative surveys of educators about COVID-19. The surveys focus on the type of instruction educators are offering and their infrastructure for remote learning, the factors hindering or facilitating their work, their priorities for fall, and their efforts to support students’ well-being. With oversamples of schools serving predominantly students of color and students affected by poverty, RAND is documenting the pandemic’s implications for equity and contribute to guidance on how to address it.
In fall 2020, RAND will again survey principals and teachers to understand how schools are supporting students and educators in the face of what will continue to be a challenging set of circumstances, with an additional round of surveys in mid-2021 to assess how the school year has gone and to gauge the ongoing challenges educators are facing.
