Publications & ProductsSearch Results: (1-15 of 157 records)
| Pub Number | Title |  Date |
|---|---|---|
| NCEE 2025002 | Lessons from the First Statewide Family Engagement Centers: Alignment with Federal Priorities and Factors Influencing Implementation
This report describes the implementation efforts of the first grantees under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) and how they aligned with program priorities. Begun in 2018, SFEC is one of the key U.S. Department of Education programs designed to address disparities in family engagement in schools. The program provides grants to selected partnerships of education organizations and their states to deliver services and disseminate technical assistance resources to further family-school engagement. The study was designed to provide early lessons about the program, including the extent to which implementation reflected the 2018 federal emphasis on providing services directly to families and schools, using specific approaches, topics, and ways of collaborating among partners, and serving mostly disadvantaged families and districts with high concentrations of students from such families. The study also examined the factors that influenced grantee implementation, including challenges in carrying out their program efforts that coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and immediately after. |
10/30/2024 |
| NCEE 2025001 | Identifying the Nation's Lowest Performing Schools: Shifts Following the Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
For over two decades, federal law has required states to identify their low-performing schools to target school improvement resources to where they are needed most. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 sought to address perceived problems with prior school accountability policies, including too many schools being labeled as low performing. ESSA introduced new flexibilities and requirements for how states evaluate school performance and identify schools most in need of intensive support, now designated as Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools. This study examined if ESSA played out as policymakers expected or if there were any other consequences for the number, types, and composition of schools that states identified by comparing those identified just before (2016–17) and just after (2018–19) ESSA's implementation. |
10/28/2024 |
| NCEE 2024006 | How a Federal Grant Program Is Training and Supporting Educators of English Learners
Across the nation, states and school districts face a persistent shortage of educators with expertise in promoting both the English proficiency and academic achievement of English learner (EL) students. To help improve educators' qualifications and classroom instruction for ELs, the National Professional Development (NPD) program has awarded grants for EL-focused educator professional development projects since 2002. This U.S. Department of Education–funded program allows grantees to serve the varied types of educators who work with ELs, including those preparing to join the educator workforce, and encourages grantees to focus on professional development topics and approaches supported by rigorous research evidence. In addition, the NPD program encourages grantees to engage in evaluation activities, including performance measurement and rigorous evaluations of project effectiveness, that may inform project improvement and contribute to evidence building. This study examines the extent to which NPD grantees implemented their projects in ways aligned with these program objectives, drawing primarily on a 2021 survey of all 2016 and 2017 NPD grantees. |
8/20/2024 |
| NCEE 2024005 | Evaluation of Departmentalized Instruction in Elementary Schools: Exploring Implementation Experiences
Assigning upper elementary grade teachers to teach their strongest subjects to multiple classes ("departmentalizing"), rather than teaching all subjects to a single class, ("self-contained instruction") could mean more specialized instructional expertise in the classroom or focus for teacher planning time and professional development. This study examined the experiences of 90 schools that either voluntarily switched to departmentalized instruction for up to two years or continued with self-contained teaching in 4th and 5th grade classes beginning in fall 2019. The findings show that schools that switched were able to implement the key steps needed to departmentalize instruction but struggled with aspects of the approach. Teachers' reported experiences were consistent with some of both the benefits and challenges that prior research had hypothesized. Although the pandemic significantly disrupted instruction and the study activities, school and teacher experiences during this challenging time may inform schools and districts considering adopting departmentalized instruction. |
7/9/2024 |
| NCEE 2024004 | Appropriate Identification of Children with Disabilities for IDEA Services: A Report from Recent National Estimates
Appropriately identifying children with disabilities--in ways that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate--is critical for ensuring that learners receive the supports they need to meet early milestones and succeed in school. In turn, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) charges states and school districts with: (1) finding all children, birth through age 21, suspected of having a disability; (2) evaluating them to determine if they are eligible for IDEA services; and (3) measuring and addressing racial or ethnic disparities in who is identified. Since IDEA's reauthorization in 2004, there is greater access to data and more sophisticated approaches to screen for and detect certain disabilities, an increasingly diverse child population, and new regulations on how to measure disparities in identification. This report examines how state and district practices during the 2019-2020 school year aligned with IDEA’s goals of appropriate identification. |
6/11/2024 |
| NCEE 2024003 | Did the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant Program Reach Its Goals? An Implementation Report
Boosting literacy among school-age children remains a national priority. Nearly one third of students in the United States have not developed the foundational reading skills needed to succeed academically, with students living in poverty, students with disabilities, and English learners especially at risk. Starting in 2010, Congress invested more than $1 billion for state literacy improvement efforts through the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) program. SRCL was intended to focus funding on disadvantaged schools, encourage schools to use evidence-based practices, and support schools and teachers in providing comprehensive literacy instruction. This report assesses how well SRCL implementation was aligned with these goals, using information collected from states, districts, and schools in all 11 states awarded three-year grants in 2017. |
5/21/2024 |
| NCEE 2024002 | Federal Efforts Towards Investing in Innovation through the i3 Fund: A Summary of Grantmaking and Evidence-Building
Finding and expanding the use of innovative educational strategies that work is important to help improve student learning and close equity gaps nationwide. The Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was a key U.S. Department of Education (Department) program explicitly focused on these goals. Between 2010 and 2016, i3 invested $1.4 billion in 172 five-year grants to universities, school districts, and private non-profit organizations. The i3 Fund intentionally awarded different types of grants to either develop and test new, innovative but as-yet unproven strategies or to learn more about the circumstances under which previously tested strategies are effective. Grantees were required to fund independent evaluations that would meet high standards for quality. The Department reviewed 148 i3 evaluations, completed at or after the conclusion of the grants, to understand the key components of the grantees' educational strategies, assess the quality of the grantees' evaluations, and summarize what the evaluations found. |
2/27/2024 |
| NCEE 2023006 | Investigating the Scope and Implementation of Return to Title IV Funds
Students who receive federal student loan or grant aid and subsequently withdraw may be subject to a "Return of Title IV Funds" (R2T4) calculation, which can require the student or college to pay back unused aid funds to the government. Despite the potential influence of the policy on students, colleges, and the integrity of federal student aid programs, little is known about the policy's scope. Offices within the Department of Education, including Federal Student Aid and the Institute of Education Sciences, collaborated with the Office of Evaluation Sciences at the U.S. General Services Administration to better understand R2T4. The overarching goal of this evaluation is to build foundational, descriptive evidence that documents the scope of R2T4 in terms of students and colleges affected by the policy as well as associated aid amounts due and returned. |
9/12/2023 |
| WWC 2023008 | Using Bayesian Meta-Analysis to Explore the Components of Early Literacy Interventions
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released a report that applies two methodological approaches new to the WWC that together aim to improve researchers' understanding of how early literacy interventions may work to improve outcomes for students in grades K-3. First, this report pilots a new taxonomy developed by early literacy experts and intervention developers as part of a larger effort to develop standard nomenclature for the components of literacy interventions. Then, the WWC uses Bayesian meta-analysis—a statistical method to systematically summarize evidence across multiple studies—to estimate the associations between intervention components and intervention impacts. Twenty-nine studies of 25 early literacy interventions that were previously reviewed by the WWC and met the WWC's rigorous research standards were included in the analysis. This method found that the components examined in this synthesis appear to have a limited role in explaining variation in intervention impacts on alphabetics outcomes, including phonics, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and letter identification. This method also identified positive associations between intervention impacts on alphabetics outcomes and components related to using student assessment data to drive decisions, including about how to group students for instruction, and components related to non-academic student supports, including efforts to teach social-emotional learning strategies and outreach to parents and families. This report is exploratory because this synthesis cannot conclude that specific components caused improved alphabetics outcomes. |
9/12/2023 |
| NCEE 2023003 | Possible Ways of Increasing College Access Among Adults from Underserved Backgrounds: A Study of College Transition Text-Based Messaging
For adults with low incomes and potential first-generation college-goers, enrolling in college can be challenging. The U.S. Department of Education-funded Educational Opportunity Centers (EOCs) provide supports to help navigate some of the barriers to enrollment, including assistance with completing college and financial aid application processes, academic advising, and personal counseling. This study tested a text messaging program provided as a supplement to EOCs' typical services. The program included a set of personalized, automated text messages focused on how to secure financial aid, complete key college enrollment steps, and navigate other potential barriers to college entry. Clients from 18 EOCs were randomly assigned to receive the text messages in addition to typical EOC services or to receive typical EOC services only. The study compared the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion and college enrollment rates of these two groups to determine the effectiveness of the messaging program. |
5/4/2023 |
| NCEE 2023004 | Evaluating the Federal Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority: Early Implementation and Progress of State Efforts to Develop New Statewide Academic Assessments
Education officials have long hoped that the statewide academic assessments most students take each year could be used not only for accountability, but also to guide instruction. Congress established the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) program in 2015 to help address this goal, offering states temporary flexibility from certain federal testing requirements so that they may more easily make progress toward replacing their current assessments with more innovative ones. However, states approved for IADA must still show that their innovative assessments meet most requirements for federal accountability, and they are expected to implement the new assessments statewide within 5 years. This report describes the progress of the first five IADA systems through the 2020–21 school year. The report is primarily based on an analysis of states' IADA applications and performance reports to the U.S. Department of Education and is part of a broader evaluation of IADA required by Congress. |
4/27/2023 |
| NCEE 2023002 | Federal Support for Attracting, Training, and Retaining Educators: How Districts Receiving Teacher and School Leader Grants Use Their Funds
Ensuring students' equitable access to talented educators remains a national priority. Congress established the Teacher and School Leader (TSL) Incentive competitive grant program in 2015 to help address this goal, providing financial support to selected school districts to improve their systems for hiring, supporting, and retaining educators, particularly in high-need schools. Grantees can use TSL funds flexibly to improve their basic infrastructure for generating and managing data or on strategies that use these data to improve their educator workforce. This report provides the first comprehensive review of the activities 2017 TSL grantee districts prioritized with their TSL funds and how well these activities aligned with key aspects of the program. The report is based on interviews conducted near the end of the initial 3-year grant period for the 24 districts that were part of the 2017 TSL cohort and is part of a broader evaluation of TSL required by Congress. |
3/21/2023 |
| NCEE 2023001 | Linking Adult Education to Workforce Development in 2018-19: Early Implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act at the Local Level
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 includes new requirements and incentives to strengthen the link between its Title II -- adult education -- and the overall workforce development system. This report from a national evaluation of Title II examines the extent to which local adult education providers’ instructional approaches and coordination with other agencies in 2018-19 reflected this link and highlights the challenges providers reported collecting related performance data. A compendium provides detailed tables supporting the policy report. |
3/8/2023 |
| NCEE 2022007 | The Effects of an Academic Language Program on Student Reading Outcomes
Helping English learners and economically disadvantaged students read as well as their more advantaged peers is a struggle for many schools. This study tested a promising program to improve fourth- and fifth-grade students' ability to understand the academic language used in school and support their reading achievement. The supplemental program included reading, speaking, and writing activities for students and training for teachers. About 60 schools were randomly assigned to implement the program for one school year or to continue using their typical strategies. The study compared the average reading performance of the two groups to assess the program's effectiveness. |
8/16/2022 |
| NCEE 2022008 | Study of Training in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior: Impacts on Elementary School Students' Outcomes
To prevent and address students’ problem behaviors and support their learning, the Department of Education and many states have promoted the use of multi-tiered systems of support for behavior (MTSS-B). This study evaluated one promising, intensive program of MTSS-B training and technical assistance. The MTSS-B approach seeks to change the school learning environment by consistently teaching and reinforcing good behavior for all students and identifying and providing supplemental support to students who need it. About 90 elementary schools were randomly assigned either to participate in the program or to continue with their usual strategies for supporting student behavior. The study compared student and teacher experiences in the two sets of schools to measure the effectiveness of the program. |
7/14/2022 |
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