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Educational Leadership

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Report

U.S. School Districts Are Expanding Their Services Beyond Academics

Aug 23, 2021

During the pandemic, the percentage of districts offering weekend meals to eligible students nearly tripled. Nine of ten districts offered summer programs. More mental health services and computing devices will be provided to students in 2021–2022. But most academic programs won't change.
Research Brief

Benefits and Drawbacks of the Four-Day School Week

Oct 7, 2021

A four-day school week is becoming more common, especially in states with large rural areas. Champions of the shorter week contend that it saves money, improves student attendance, and helps recruit and retain teachers to rural districts. But what does the evidence say?

Explore Education Administration

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

Educating Students with Disabilities: Lessons from the Pandemic

A survey of U.S. educators sheds light on the obstacles that teachers and principals faced—even before the pandemic—that make supporting students with disabilities especially challenging in the COVID-19 era.

Mar 3, 2022
Commentary

Finding Teachers and Bus Drivers Is a Big Problem, but a Different Staffing Challenge Is Looming in School Districts

The majority of school districts report they don't have enough staff to hire, particularly substitutes, bus drivers, and special education teachers. A recent survey also revealed a major challenge for the superintendency. Only half of superintendents said they were likely to stay in their jobs for the long term.

Feb 17, 2022
Report

School Staffing Challenges in the Pandemic's Third Year

As of fall 2021, school staff shortages were most acute for substitutes, bus drivers, special education teachers, and paraprofessionals. The turnover of superintendents was normal but half of them said that they might leave in the next few years or were unsure of how long they would stay.

Feb 15, 2022
Report

Challenges That May Be Getting in the Way of Student Learning

As of November 2021, school district leaders' top three concerns were the mental health of students, teachers, and principals. And 74 percent of them said that political polarization about COVID-19 safety or vaccines was interfering with their ability to educate students.

Feb 8, 2022
Blog

Preventing Civilian Casualties, Drinking During the Pandemic, Vaccination Equity: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on reforming the Pentagon's policies on civilian casualties, checking in on school principals' well-being, alcohol use in the COVID-19 era, and more.

Jan 28, 2022
Report

How Were Principals Doing One Year into the Pandemic?

Four out of five secondary school principals reported experiencing frequent job-related stress during the 2020–2021 school year. As the pandemic persists, what could help reduce the burden on school leaders?

Jan 26, 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
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

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

American Instructional Resources Surveys: 2021 Technical Documentation and Survey Results

This technical report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the American Instructional Resources Surveys administered to principals and teachers in spring 2021 via RAND's American Educator Panels.

Oct 26, 2021
Report

The Rise of Standards-Aligned Instructional Materials for U.S. K–12 Teachers

Many states and education organizations have been pushing for greater use of standards-aligned curriculum, especially in recent years. What proportion of U.S. K–12 public teachers were using standards-aligned curriculum materials for their mathematics and English language arts instruction during the 2020–2021 school year?

Oct 26, 2021
Blog

Four-Day School Weeks, Domestic Terrorism, North Korea: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the trade-offs of a four-day school week, how to counter domestic violent extremism, racial disparities in who is convicted of more-serious speeding charges, and more.

Oct 8, 2021
Report

Does Four Equal Five? Implementation and Outcomes of the Four-Day School Week

The authors provide information on the implementation and outcomes of the four-day school week using quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of sources, including surveys of parents and students in 36 districts in three states.

Oct 7, 2021
Tool

School Turnaround Cost Analysis Tool

Some popular approaches to supporting low-performing schools include helping schools collect and use data to guide their planning. This tool helps education leaders assess potential costs of some of the more popular and research-supported approaches.

Sep 9, 2021
Report

The Rise of Virtual Schools

Since the pandemic began, America's school districts have been offering more remote instruction options. This includes a ninefold increase in the number of districts running standalone virtual schools.

Aug 30, 2021
Visualization

Summer 2021 COVID-19 Survey Results: American School District Panel Interactive Survey Results Tool

This tool allows users to compare district leaders' responses to each question in the June 2021 survey. Bar charts display results for all respondents and by district type, locale, student racial and ethnicity composition, and district poverty level.

Aug 16, 2021

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RAND Topic:
Education Administration

Research conducted by

RAND Education and Labor