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Educational Equity

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The question of educational equity involves the gap in achievement between minority and nonminority students. RAND has conducted research into the effects of grouping students by ability, preschool participation, charter programs, and school funding on schools' abilities to provide equal education to students of varying socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds.

Essay

The COVID Slide: How to Help Students Recover Learning Losses

Jul 9, 2020

Research shows that summer breaks contribute to income-based achievement and opportunity gaps for youth. How can we use what we know about summer learning to help kids in the age of COVID-19?
Report

The Digital Divide and COVID-19

Sep 24, 2020

Findings from a survey of U.S. teachers reveal how limited home internet access has been a barrier to providing instruction amid pandemic-related school closures. The problem is particularly acute among high-poverty schools.

Explore Educational Equity

Commentary

Commit Now to Get Summer Programming Right

Summer programs, when targeted to needs, intentionally designed, and well-attended, produce positive outcomes for children in math and reading. But they need federal support, and require early planning to make them worthwhile.

Apr 15, 2021
Report

Adapting Course Placement Processes in Response to COVID-19 Disruptions: Guidance for Schools and Districts

Because of the pandemic, spring 2020 end-of-year assessments were canceled and schools began the 2020-2021 year without assessment data. The authors compare three strategies to estimate missing test scores and help with course placement decisions.

Feb 16, 2021
Report

Cutting the College Price TAG: The Effects of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant on College Persistence and Completion

RAND researchers studied more than 450,000 recipients of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant to explore whether larger amounts of grant aid led to higher graduation rates for students at varying income levels and types of institutions.

Feb 4, 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
Journal Article

Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time

Using internet searches, we study real-time demand for online learning resources. Internet searches for online learning resources doubled during the pandemic. Increases were larger in are as with higher income and better internet access. The pandemic will likely widen achievement gaps along these dimensions.

Feb 3, 2021
Report

Evaluation of Delaware's Opportunity Funding and Student Success Block Grant Programs: Early Implementation

The authors examine the 2019-2020 implementation of two newly expanded Delaware weighted education funding programs, the Opportunity Fund and Student Success Block Grant, and emerging best practices, as reported by local education agency leaders.

Jan 21, 2021
Periodical

RAND Review: January-February 2021

The cover story on the ’Internet of Bodies’ highlights the perils of devices that track personal health data and provide medical treatment. Other columns explore vaccine hesitancy, the high price of insulin in the U.S., and social justice in America.

Jan 6, 2021
Commentary

COVID-19's Long-Term Effects on Students

The pandemic has created an unprecedented set of obstacles for schools and exacerbated existing structural inequalities in public education. It may take years to understand how COVID-19 affected student learning and social and emotional development and to identify any lasting effects on low-income communities and communities of color.

Dec 29, 2020
Commentary

Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic Highlights Educational Inequity

The ability to telework is associated with both reduced risk of COVID-19 infection and with significantly lower risk of job loss. There are large disparities in who is able to telework by race and ethnicity—but even larger ones by educational attainment.

Dec 23, 2020
Blog

The Most Popular RAND Research of 2020

Here are the RAND research projects that resonated most in 2020, a year unlike any in living memory. Topics include remote learning, election disinformation, income inequality, and more.

Dec 21, 2020
News Release

Remote Learning Here to Stay Despite Challenges

About two in 10 U.S. school districts have already adopted, plan to adopt, or are considering adopting virtual schools after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dec 15, 2020
Report

Despite Its Challenges, Remote Learning Is Here to Stay

School district leaders are concerned about students' unequal opportunities to learn during the pandemic, students' social and emotional learning needs, and insufficient funding to cover staff. About two in ten still anticipate that a fully remote learning option will become a permanent public school offering.

Dec 15, 2020
Report

Exploring Coherence in English Language Arts Instructional Systems in the Common Core Era

Coherence among instructional components is key to changing teachers' practices in standards-based reforms. This report uses survey data to explore the coherence of school-level instructional systems in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

Nov 4, 2020
Multimedia

COVID-19 and the Digital Divide: Inequities in Online Learning

RAND senior policy researcher Julia Kaufman explains how the digital divide impacted teaching and learning when schools closed last spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oct 16, 2020
Blog

Election Interference on Twitter, Insulin Prices, Remote Learning: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on evidence of interference in the 2020 election on Twitter, U.S. insulin prices compared to those of other countries, how parents can help their kids' education stay on track during the pandemic, and more.

Oct 9, 2020
Blog

How Russia Targets U.S. Elections, Black Workers and COVID-19, TikTok: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on how Russia targets U.S. elections, Americans' increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic, Black workers and COVID-19, and more.

Oct 2, 2020
Report

Schools Weren't Prepared for a Crisis Like COVID-19

Before COVID-19, less than half of U.S. public schools had a written plan for dealing with a pandemic. And only 38 states had publicly available school health emergency plans. How did schools' preparation affect their transitions to remote learning and principals' confidence in student achievement?

Sep 29, 2020
Blog

Health Care Price Transparency, COVID-19 Vaccinations, Gun Laws: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on what private health plans pay compared to what Medicare pays, when COVID-19's global spread really began, laws that could reduce firearm deaths, and more.

Sep 25, 2020
Commentary

Schools Need to Be Planning for the Next 9 Months, Not the Next 9 Weeks

Schools cannot simply wait out this pandemic, nor will short-term planning and ad-hoc infrastructure get them successfully through this academic year. If schools are to minimize educational losses, large-scale investments should be made now.

Sep 8, 2020

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RAND Topic:
Educational Equity

Research conducted by

RAND Education and Labor