American Institutes for Research

Worsening staffing challenges in special education have led to increased reliance on emergency permits to staff special education positions, but there is little large-scale quantitative evidence about special education teachers (SETs) who entered the workforce with emergency permits. We used longitudinal data from Pennsylvania to study the composition, distribution, and stability of emergency permitted special education teachers (EPSETs). EPSETs were more racially and ethnically diverse than other novice SETs, and they disproportionately taught in schools serving more historically disadvantaged students. EPSETs of color were more likely to leave the workforce and were less likely to transition to full certification than other EPSETs, as were EPSETs in schools with higher percentages of students of color in a district. Efforts to retain and fully credential EPSETs of color and EPSETs in harder-to-staff schools are one mechanism to improve the racial and ethnic diversity of the SET workforce and address special education staffing challenges.

We implemented two reforms to student teaching in randomized controlled trials designed to test improvements to preservice preparation. Although neither reform affected overall teacher employment, we find significant effects on other labor market outcomes. The first-placed student teachers are planned with more effective mentors and in more effective schools for their clinical experiences. We find that treated candidates tended to find employment in higher-income and less diverse schools, an effect that appears to operate primarily among teachers not hired into their placement sites. The second intervention provided detailed reports to teacher candidates, their field instructors, and their school-based mentor teachers about performance on clinical evaluations during the clinical experience. Treated candidates in this experiment were more likely to obtain teaching positions in the schools in which they completed their student teaching. Overall, the results suggest that student teaching reforms may have important and unexpected effects on the teacher labor market.

Objective: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) frequently requests the formation of working groups (WGs) as a component of coordinating centers for large multisite studies. This study aims to offer insights into the importance of integrating community-engaged approaches in WGs to facilitate collaboration and capacity building in health equity research. Methods: Data from four different sources were analyzed to assess the organizational structure, performance, and effectiveness of nine WGs formed as part of the NIH-funded Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics–Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic. These sources include administrative documents, feedback surveys of WG members, focus groups of WG members, and semi-structured interviews of WG chairs. Results: RADx-UP WGs were organized to promote health equity through the development of communities of practice. The vast majority of group members responding to a feedback survey agreed or strongly agreed that the RADx-UP WGs had achieved this objective. The WGs were successful by engaging chairs who fostered a culture of collaboration, engaging a diverse membership in the co-creation of knowledge, and investing in an infrastructure that combined accountability with flexibility. Discussion: These lessons learned from RADx-UP can help future WG initiatives to optimize their effectiveness and promote health equity in national, collaborative research projects.

This study examines the impact of a nationally scaled whole-school inclusion initiative—the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools (UCS) program—on student academic and behavioral outcomes. Using 11 years of student-level administrative data from North Carolina and a difference-in-differences design, we analyze how exposure to UCS relates to standardized test scores, grade point average, graduation rates, absenteeism, and disciplinary incidents. Results show that longer participation in UCS is associated with improved academic performance and reductions in absenteeism and suspensions, particularly for students with intellectual disabilities. Subgroup analyses suggest larger effects for students from low-income backgrounds. As the first student-level evaluation of UCS using a rigorous empirical design, this study provides new evidence on the academic and behavioral benefits of whole-school inclusion programs. Findings highlight the potential of sustained, schoolwide approaches to support positive outcomes for students with and without disabilities and inform future efforts to strengthen inclusive practices in educational settings.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become an important part of education for many U.S. schools, yet research has not provided sufficient guidance on how support whole school systemic approaches to SEL. This study tested the effects of the CASEL School Guide, an innovative model of implementation support for schoolwide SEL, on staff perceptions of SEL organizational capacity, culture, and integration. The data were from a cluster-randomized controlled trial with 28 low performing, urban elementary schools. All schools delivered the PATHS Curriculum with its standard model of training and support. Half the schools also received monthly coaching support as part of the CASEL School Guide. The results of growth curve analyses indicated that education staff in both conditions improved on all seven target outcomes improvements with slower rates on six outcomes during the follow-up year. The perceptions of needs and stakeholder involvement in PATHS + School Guide schools improved faster but this advantage leveled off by the final data collection. No significant differences were found for vision and data use between conditions. The intervention influenced how staff perceived SEL integration but not SEL culture. The initial faster growth in SEL integration among PATHS + School Guide schools also slowed by the final time point. Finally, teacher experience did not moderate the effects of the School Guide intervention, as indicated by non-significant three-way interactions. However, School Guide support helped early career teachers in PATHS + School Guide schools close the gap with experienced teachers faster than their counterparts in PATHS-Standard schools.

Integrating literacy-focused curricula in preschool settings may help support children’s literacy learning. In this study, we explored the use of literacy-focused curricula and how it was associated with preschool children’s literacy gains (i.e., print and letter knowledge, phonological awareness, language and comprehension, and emergent writing) relative to non-literacy-focused curricula. We estimated multilevel structural equation models using data from an intervention study that included a sample of 571 children nested within 98 preschool classrooms. Because early disparities in emergent literacy are associated with later reading and writing difficulties, we examined how such associations might be moderated by child risk status, receipt of emergent literacy intervention, and program settings. We found that literacy-focused curricula were not often used by teachers in preschool classrooms, but teachers’ use of such curricula was positively associated with children’s phonological awareness gains. Risk status did not moderate the association between use of literacy-focused curricula and children’s emergent writing gains. Additionally, emergent literacy intervention and program settings did not moderate the associations. However, we found that teachers’ use of literacy-focused curricula was positively associated with print and letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and language and comprehension for children identified as at risk for later reading difficulties compared to those who were not at risk. As such, our findings suggest that integrating or supplementing existing classroom instruction with literacy-focused curricula could yield meaningful benefits for children identified as at risk for later reading difficulties.

To make up for pandemic-related learning losses, many U.S. public school districts have increased enrollment in their summer school programs. We assessed summer school as a strategy for COVID-19 learning recovery by tracking the academic progress of students who attended summer school in 2022 across eight districts serving 400,000 students. Using value-added models that control for students’ demographics and prior achievement, we estimated a positive effect of summer school on math test achievement (0.03 standard deviations) but not on reading tests. With only 13% of students participating, these districts’ summer programs closed ~2% of their total pandemic-related learning losses in math and none of their losses in reading.

Future Forward is an early primary literacy program that pairs one-on-one tutoring with family engagement. As part of an Education Intervention and Research Mid-phase grant, the evaluation of the 2021–2022 Future Forward program included 127 students in three schools, with 65 randomly assigned to received Future Forward in the fall of 2021 and the other 62 randomly assigned to business-as-usual reading instruction. To serve more students in the wake of COVID-19 school disruptions, program participation was changed from one school year to one semester. All but two students received the intended amount of tutoring of at least two sessions per week. Regarding family engagement, 64.5% of families were contacted at least once per month. School attendance, Star Early Literacy, and DIBELS 8th Edition outcomes were modeled adjusting for the fixed effect of assignment block, student demographics, baseline reading and baseline attendance. Future Forward had statistically significant positive impacts on both Star Early Literacy and DIBELS, with a differential positive impact on students of color. Future Forward did not impact school attendance.