Skip to page content

Education Policy

Featured

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
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?
Sep 30, 2021
Report
Anti-Bias Education in U.S. Public Schools
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.
Feb 22, 2022

Explore Education Policy

Report
What Teachers Think of State Policies Limiting Their Instruction
The restrictions placed on how teachers can address race- or gender-related topics in the classroom may be leading to consequences for teachers' working conditions and for student learning. Teachers report that the limitations make it more difficult to engage students in learning, to support critical thinking skills, and to build empathy.
Jan 25, 2023
Journal Article
Designing Automated Writing Evaluation Systems for Ambitious Instruction and Classroom Integration
In this chapter, we consider the role of AI tools to support ambitious teaching practices on a sustained basis. We anchor our discussion in the use of automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems that provide formative feedback.
Jan 4, 2023
Commentary
Ten Things That Inspired Me in 2022
It would be impossible to capture all the important work that RAND does in a year. But RAND president and CEO Jason Matheny has compiled ten times he was inspired by RAND's efforts to bring insight to some of the biggest policy stories of 2022.
Dec 15, 2022
Report
Florida K–12 Mathematics Teachers' Credentials and Preparation: Findings from the 2022 Learn Together Surveys
The authors present findings on Florida mathematics teachers' credentialing pathways, preparation program content, and program resources' availability and helpfulness to offer a current picture of the mathematics teaching workforce in Florida.
Dec 12, 2022
Report
Learn Together Surveys: 2022 Technical Documentation and Survey Results
This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the 2022 Learn Together Surveys that were administered to K-12 principals and teachers in March 2022 via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels.
Nov 3, 2022
Report
Holistic early education and care: Policy and practice in France 2017-2021
The report presents an overview of holistic early childhood education and care policy and practice in France between 2017-2021, including an analysis of broader societal, political and research trends regarding early childhood development.
Sep 8, 2022
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

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next

Research conducted by