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Education and Literacy

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RAND research on early childhood, K-12, and higher education covers issues such as assessment and accountability, choice-based and standards-based reform, school leadership, teacher effectiveness, technology, and vocational training. RAND also explores life skills, such as media, health, and financial literacy, as well as how time spent outside the classroom impacts student outcomes.

Commentary

Commit Now to Get Summer Programming Right

Apr 15, 2021

When summer programs are targeted to needs, intentionally designed, and well attended, they produce positive outcomes in math and reading. But these programs need federal support, and they require early planning.
Report

How Are Teachers Educating Students with Disabilities During the Pandemic?

Apr 8, 2021

Remote and hybrid learning can present particular challenges to students with disabilities (SWD) and their teachers. Nearly two in five teachers said that their schools offered alternative arrangements for SWD during the pandemic. But this was less common in schools serving more students of color and more students experiencing poverty.

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Report

A Practical Guide to Implementing Rerandomization in Education Trials

This guide provides practical steps for conducting rerandomization in randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluations of education programs and highlights the benefits and drawbacks of this method as compared to others, such as stratification.

May 17, 2021
Commentary

How Truth Decay Is Fueling Vaccine Hesitancy

A recent poll found that more than a quarter of Americans will not try to get vaccinated. The spread of misinformation and disinformation, which is rampant over social media, is one of the factors fueling vaccine hesitancy. And in turn, it's threatening our ability to end the pandemic for good.

May 14, 2021
Blog

Pandemic Education, Working Mothers, Predicting Cyber Threats: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the urban-rural divide in pandemic education, supporting working moms, what makes a good COVID-19 reopening plan, and more.

May 14, 2021
Commentary

Building an Evidence Base for High School Improvement Will Require Concerted Effort Among Policymakers, School Systems, Researchers, and Funders

The ultimate goal of every education intervention is to help enable students to achieve their fullest potential. Relatively few interventions suited for high schools are supported by evidence of positive effects. Research that is able to provide sound evidence about effectiveness is more important than ever.

May 12, 2021
Report

Urban and Rural Districts Show Strong Divide During the Pandemic

As of February 2021, only 17 percent of urban school districts—compared with 42 percent of rural districts—were offering fully in-person instruction. What are the implications of this disparity?

May 11, 2021
Visualization

American School District Panel Winter 2021 COVID-19 Survey

A total of 434 district leaders from school districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) took the second survey of the American School District Panel between January 21 and March 5, 2021. This tool presents weighted survey results that are nationally representative of school districts in the United States.

May 11, 2021
News Release

Rural School Districts Swifter to Return to In-Person Instruction Than Urban Districts

About 42% of rural school districts in the United States offered fully in-person instruction as of February, compared with only 17% for urban districts. The opposite pattern held for fully remote learning: 29% of urban districts offered fully remote instruction compared with 10% of rural districts and 18% of suburban districts.

May 11, 2021
Periodical

RAND Review: May-June 2021

The cover story highlights the value of invention, analyzing the economic and social impacts of winners of the Lemelson-MIT Prize. A second feature focuses on human rights abuses against ethnic Uyghurs in China and what we know from satellite images.

May 6, 2021
Report

What Is the Cost of High-Quality Publicly Funded Pre-K?

Researchers use cost data collection and cost modeling to estimate the cost of a high-quality publicly funded pre-kindergarten program. They outline the challenges in understanding full program costs and the implications for policymakers.

May 6, 2021
Research Brief

High-Quality Publicly Funded Pre-Kindergarten Programs: How Much Do They Cost?

There is strong evidence that children who attend high-quality pre-kindergarten programs learn skills that benefit them in school and life. In this brief, RAND researchers estimate the cost of such programs and outline implications.

May 6, 2021
Commentary

The American Rescue Plan Is a Chance to Support Students with Disabilities. Here Are Some Investments Worth Considering

National surveys of K–12 teachers provide insight into challenges for effectively educating students with disabilities during the pandemic and beyond. Understanding these challenges can help identify important funding options to address gaps.

May 5, 2021
Essay

The Power of Invention—and the Value of Diversity and Inclusion

Inventions benefit society and improve lives. Their economic impacts show the value of investing in more young people and their opportunities for learning. Policymakers could support programs that encourage more women, minorities, and people from lower-income families to become inventors.

May 4, 2021
Report

Did Experience with Digital Instructional Materials Help Teachers Implement Remote Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Researchers examine teachers' use of digital materials during the 2019–2020 school year, whether digital materials connected to main curricula, and how the use of digital materials before the pandemic connected to teaching during school closures.

May 4, 2021
Blog

Biden's First Address to Congress: Insights from RAND

President Joe Biden addressed a joint session of Congress, summarizing his administration's early COVID-19 response and outlining plans that aim to loosen the pandemic's year-long grip on a weary nation. The speech reflected the fact that the United States faces policy challenges across a wide range of domains.

Apr 29, 2021
Essay

China's Disappeared Uyghurs: What Satellite Images Reveal

At least one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have vanished into a sprawling network of camps and prisons in China's far west. Satellite images show brightly lit compounds, wall after wall of barbed wire, and a sudden rush to build what appear to be fortified preschools.

Apr 29, 2021
Commentary

The Importance of Gathering Evidence of Edtech Impact

Given the increased reliance on technology to support learning, now may be a good time for educational technology companies to start thinking more seriously about the data they collect and how they use it.

Apr 27, 2021
Blog

Summer Learning, America's Middle Class, Waking Up After the Pandemic: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on how to make summer learning count, U.S. deterrence in the ‘gray zone,’ why so many Americans are stuck outside the middle class, and more.

Apr 23, 2021
Report

Changing the Subject: K–12 Teachers' Use of and Access to Science-Specific Instructional Materials, Feedback, and Professional Learning

In this Data Note, researchers use the 2020 American Instructional Resources Survey to examine how teachers' science instruction is supported and whether supports differ from those that teachers reported for English language arts and math.

Apr 21, 2021
Report

Transforming Global Education Through Evidence: An Evaluation System for the BHP Foundation's Education Equity Global Signature Program

In this report, researchers develop a framework to evaluate the BHP Foundation's Education Equity Global Signature Program, explain methods for assessing progress over five years, and present preliminary results after a year of evaluation.

Apr 15, 2021

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RAND Topic:
Education and Literacy

Topic Synonyms:
Instruction;
Learning;
Schooling

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