Briefs

This brief is based on a report reviewing research on the role of money in determining school quality. The research found that schooling resources that cost money are positively associated with student outcomes. In addition to summarizing the report, the brief offers these policy recommendations: Ensure school finance reforms are linked to thoughtful standards and supports for students and teachers, invest more in students who have greater needs, and invest in human resources.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides an opportunity for states to include measures of students social, emotional, and academic development when assessing outcomes. This brief offers recommendations for ways state agencies can encourage social and emotional learning in schools to support the whole child, through their systems of accountability and continuous improvement under ESSA.

More and more states and districts are recognizing that recruiting and retaining teachers of color can help meet their students' needs while also helping to curb critical teacher shortages. But prospective teachers of color encounter unique barriers to entering and staying in the profession. High-retention pathways—combining high-quality clinically rich preparation with financial support—can be especially effective at reversing those trends.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) to examine racial division and disparities in the United States. In 1968, the Kerner Commission released a report concluding that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Without major social changes, the Commission warned, the U.S. faced a “system of apartheid” in its major cities. In 2018, 50 years after the report was issued, that prediction characterizes most of our large urban areas, where intensifying segregation and concentrated poverty have collided with disparities in school funding to reinforce educational inequality.

For the 2017-18 school year, 80% of California districts reported shortages of qualified teachers and 82% reported hiring underprepared teachers, according to an LPI survey completed by 25 California school districts. Those districts collectively serve a quarter of the state’s students and include urban, suburban, and rural areas. This brief examines how districts experienced teacher supply in the fall of 2017.

This study of California’s recent major school finance reform, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), is among the first to provide evidence of LCFF’s impacts on student outcomes. We found that LCFF-induced increases in school spending led to significant increases in high school graduation rates and academic achievement, particularly among children from low-income families. The evidence suggests that money targeted to students’ needs can make a significant difference in student outcomes and can narrow achievement gaps.

This brief provides California policymakers with recommendations on how to improve access to high-quality early childhood education (ECE) for all children. It is based on a report that examines the ECE practices in 10 counties that vary by region, population density, and child care affordability. The report upon which this brief is based describes the landscape of ECE at the local level as it is shaped by federal and state policies, illuminates challenges that counties face in providing access to high-quality programs, and highlights promising practices.

This brief describes performance assessments and their value for guiding and evaluating high school students' learning, as well as informing colleges and universities about what students know and can do. It explores state and local policies that support the use of such assessments, along with emerging higher education efforts to incorporate them in college admission, placement, and advising. It discusses steps that can help ensure that performance assessments are high-quality, rigorous, and well understood and that can facilitate the use of these assessments in higher education decisions.

Education policymakers working to address the impacts of growing economic and racial inequality on students often look to community schools as an effective approach for supporting students and their families in communities facing concentrated poverty. This brief and related report synthesizes findings from 143 rigorous research studies and finds that community schools can improve outcomes for all students, especially those facing lack of access to high-quality schools and out-of-school barriers to learning.

Without changes in current policies, U.S. teacher shortages are projected to grow in the coming years. Teacher turnover is an important source of these shortages. About 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, two-thirds of them for reasons other than retirement. Another 8% shift to different schools each year. In addition to aggravating teacher shortages, high turnover rates lower student achievement and are costly for schools. This brief examines turnover trends and causes and concludes that policies to stem teacher turnover should target compensation, teacher preparation and support, and teaching conditions.