This NWEA research brief examines how access to early Algebra – a key gateway to advanced high school math, STEM majors, and higher lifetime earnings – remains highly inequitable across the United States. Using NWEA data from 162,000 eighth-grade students across 22 states, the study looks at both whether schools offer Algebra by 8th grade and how students are placed when it is offered. The findings point to significant gaps tied to school poverty levels, geography, and race/ethnicity.

This is the technical appendix to the “Unequal Access to 8th-Grade Algebra: How School Offerings and Placement Practices Limit Opportunity” research brief, which examines how access to early Algebra remains highly inequitable across the United States.

The research study used a robust set of data from three national assessments to examine trends in gender gaps in 8th grade STEM skills over the course of the pandemic.

This is the accompanying technical appendix to the research study, “Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills: Post-COVID trends in gender achievement gaps,” leveraging data from three national assessments, as well as enrollment in Algebra, to examine trends in gender gaps in 8th grade STEM skills over the course of the pandemic.

This research brief explores the connection between science and literacy instruction documenting the benefits of integrated science and literacy instruction at the elementary level, and highlighting the benefits of integrating instruction while providing research-based guidance on how to effectively do this.

This is the accompanying guide to the research brief, Integrating Literacy and Science: A Powerful Partnership for Student Success, which describes four key components of effective integration of literacy and science instruction at the elementary level. In this practitioner’s guide, we provide sample lessons to demonstrate each of these components in action in an elementary classroom.

This study used longitudinal data from a sample of 467 preschoolers to examine (1) if children’s executive function (EF) skills at the beginning of pre-K predict growth in their mathematics achievement across the pre-K year, (2) whether growth in learning behaviors, specifically task orientation, mediate the associations between EF and mathematics achievement, and (3) if there are sex differences in these associations.