The American Rescue Plan provides $122 billion for COVID recovery in schools. With more than 40 state plans approved, how are districts collecting, monitoring, reporting and learning from the unprecedented interventions? What can districts do now to design and implement data collection processes that will shape collective learning? In this webinar, you will hear how district leaders and researchers are approaching this opportunity to alter life outcomes for generations.

This study examined the stability of social-emotional learning (SEL) skills and the extent to which students’ initial level in SEL skills in 6th grade and growth in SEL skills from 6th to 8th grade are related to students’ successful transition to secondary school. Findings suggest that understanding how a student develops social-emotionally can improve identification of students not on track to succeed in high school.

Researchers interviewed parents whose children participated in a three-week structured kindergarten transition program designed to promote parental involvement in school, reduce students’ chronic absenteeism, and increase children’s readiness for kindergarten. Interviewees expressed that participating in the program yielded benefits for themselves and their children, and proposed various ways that adjusting the program could better meet the needs of all stakeholders. Parent suggestions were synthesized into multiple implications for practice and substantiated by current relevant literature.

In this Inside IES Research blog, RAND and NWEA researchers share some early findings from their work under an IES grant to develop strategies for schools and districts to address the impacts of COVID-19 disruptions on student assessment programs. In the blog, they describe some key findings from surveys and interviews on key concerns of districts and schools arising from the lack of assessment data from spring 2020.

This Bellwether Education Partners webinar examines how education research can continue to offer meaningful, relevant information to policymakers and practitioners after the “lost year” of data from COVID disruptions to schools and testing.

This book focuses on practical uses of assessment in education and provides resources and strategies for teachers, administrators, and other educational leaders who strive toward data-informed instruction that balances the use of assessment to address opportunity gaps.

This interactive tool provides context on the typical patterns of achievement and growth in mathematics and reading for private and Catholic schools who take MAP Growth assessments. It provides multiple ways to examine patterns for different groups of students, including by student gender, race/ethnic group, region, and state.