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Education Policy

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Education policy includes laws as well as processes and policies that educational organizations, local districts, states, and nations put in place and follow to achieve academic goals. RAND analyses have informed education policy in the United States, United Kingdom, Qatar, and many other countries.

Research Brief

Surges in Undocumented and Asylum-Seeking Children Prompt Need for Better K–12 Policies

Sep 30, 2021

Growing numbers of children from Central America and Mexico are arriving in the United States. As of March 2020, 321,000 undocumented and asylum-seeking children were enrolled in public schools. How are the schools managing, and what could be done to help them better prepare to assist these students?
Report

Anti-Bias Education in U.S. Public Schools

Feb 22, 2022

Teaching students explicitly about issues of identity, diversity, equity, and bias can lead to positive outcomes. Nearly three in four K–12 teachers reported that they provide such anti-bias instruction, but more than half said that their school's or district's curriculum materials did not adequately address anti-bias topics.

Explore Education Policy

Commentary

A Four-Day Week: Is America Ready?

As alluring as a calendar filled with three-day weekends may seem, research shows that short school weeks can have educational and health risks for students, but also benefits for them and for school districts that make the change. Do the benefits of the condensed week outweigh the costs?

May 25, 2022
Report

One Year into the Pandemic, What Secondary Math Teachers Said About Challenges to Standards-Aligned Instruction and Skipping Content

The authors use 2020 and 2021 Learn Together Survey data to examine challenges to standards-aligned instruction during COVID-19 reported by secondary math teachers and how frequently and why these teachers skipped standards-aligned math content.

May 11, 2022
Report

Readiness to Implement Evidence-Based Practices in Public Elementary Schools: Findings from a National Survey of Teachers

Using survey data from a nationally representative panel of 1,065 public elementary school teachers, the authors of this report examined teachers' perspectives on their readiness to implement evidence-based practices at their schools.

Mar 23, 2022
Brochure

The American Educator Panels: Taking the Pulse of America's Educators

This brochure describes the American Educator Panels -- innovative online survey tools that provide unique sources of accurate information about educators' knowledge, attitudes, practices, and working conditions.

Mar 14, 2022
Report

Evaluation of Delaware's Opportunity Funding and Student Success Block Grant Programs: Second Year

This is the second of three annual reports evaluating the implementation and effects of two Delaware funding programs for disadvantaged K–12 schools in the 2019–2020 to 2021–2022 school years: Opportunity Funding and the Student Success Block Grant.

Jan 27, 2022
Journal Article

Developing School Leaders: Findings From a Randomized Control Trial Study of the Executive Development Program and Paired Coaching

This article presents the results of two randomized control trials evaluating the impacts of the National Center on Education and the Economy's Executive Development Program and coaching on schoolwide practices and performance.

Jan 12, 2022
Multimedia

The Rise of Standards-Aligned Materials for English Language Arts and Math Instruction: Findings from the American Instructional Resources Survey

Experts from the RAND Corporation and EdReports share new data from a national teacher survey during this one-hour webinar on some factors that may be leading to increases in use of standards-aligned instructional materials across the United States.

Dec 2, 2021
Report

Are Educators Considering Student Voice?

Asking students to voice their perceptions can provide valuable insights that adults in a school do not have access to, while also generating more student engagement in learning.

Nov 17, 2021
Report

Summer for All: Building Coordinated Networks to Promote Access to Quality Summer Learning and Enrichment Opportunities Across a Community

In this eighth report in RAND's Summer Learning Series, the authors chronicle early efforts in four communities to create coordinated approaches to summer programming, noting their challenges, enablers, and early outcomes.

Nov 10, 2021
Report

Seeking Balance in the Provision of Technical Assistance: Insights from the National Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety

The authors examine the first three years of operation for the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS) and offer insights that might help guide efforts to continuously improve CISELSS's provision of supports.

Nov 9, 2021
Report

Learn Together Surveys: 2021 Technical Documentation and Survey Results

This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and results data for the 2021 Learn Together Surveys that were administered to secondary principals and teachers in March 2021 via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels.

Nov 2, 2021
Report

How Do Teachers Identify Supports for Struggling Students?

A survey of 6th- to 12th-grade teachers found that to determine academic needs they rely most often on information gathered from personal interactions with students and from students' performance. And more than half of them look to school and district colleagues first to learn about available interventions.

Nov 2, 2021
Journal Article

Professional Development Incentives for Oregon's Early Childhood Education Workforce: A Randomized Study

This study used two trials to test whether sending emails and offering different financial incentives to Oregon ECE workforce members increased career lattice sign-up and increased education and training levels or workplace retention.

Sep 24, 2021
Blog

U.S. Failure in Afghanistan, Critical Race Theory Bans, Income Inequality: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on how early mistakes led to America's failure in Afghanistan, the potential effects of critical race theory bans, an art installation that breaks down RAND data on income inequality, and more.

Sep 3, 2021
Commentary

How State Critical Race Theory Bans Could Trickle Down to the Classroom

Given the potential blowback to teaching anything related to race or gender, avoiding lessons on the experiences of women or people of color will be the path of least resistance in many schools. But discussing racism and sexism in a safe environment is crucial for students to become active, knowledgeable citizens.

Aug 31, 2021
Report

The Future of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant: A Review of Options and Evidence

RAND Corporation experts prepared this report to address several key issues that are a priority for the New Jersey state government surrounding its Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program for low-income college students.

Aug 5, 2021
Research Brief

How Does Corequisite Remediation Change Student Experiences? Results from a Randomized Study in Five Texas Community Colleges

Corequisite remediation for non–college-ready students provides early opportunities to earn credit, more-intensive instruction, greater rigor, greater alignment, and increased opportunities to learn from peers.

Mar 24, 2021
Report

Student Experiences in English Corequisite Remediation Versus a Standalone Developmental Education Course: Findings from an Experimental Study in Texas Community Colleges

In this report, researchers use data from a randomized control trial at five community colleges in Texas to examine contrasts in student experiences between corequisite remediation and standalone developmental education courses.

Mar 24, 2021
Journal Article

Constraints, Values, and Information: How Leaders in One District Justify Their Positions During Instructional Decision Making

We investigate how leaders support their interpretations of problems and proposed solutions during closed-door negotiations around three policy decisions, and how they invoke race, class, and language in the process.

Mar 2, 2021
Research Brief

Would Low-Income Students Graduate Faster with a Boost in Financial Aid? Results from a Natural Experiment in New Jersey

New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant—the nation's most generous state-funded grant program per state resident college student—increased the rate of on-time bachelor's degree completion at public universities for low-income students who received it.

Feb 4, 2021

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