Building and Sustaining Innovative High Schools: Findings from the Opportunity by Design Study

Building and Sustaining Innovative High Schools: Findings from the Opportunity by Design Study. RAND Corporation. Elizabeth D. Steiner et al. December 17, 2020

The Carnegie Corporation of New York’s (CCNY) Opportunity by Design (ObD) initiative provided support for 16 small schools of choice in seven large, urban districts across the United States to adopt a set of design principles intended to ensure students are prepared for college and careers. CCNY engaged the RAND Corporation in 2014 to conduct a comprehensive study of the ObD initiative. This final report summarizes implementation and outcomes findings from this five-year study and is intended to provide lessons and implementation guidance for the field.

The authors estimate the effects of the ObD initiative on student academic, behavioral, and college-readiness outcomes and describe implementation of innovative instructional practices (personalization of learning, mastery-based instruction, and positive youth development) in the final year of the initiative. Enablers of implementation included alignment of school and district grading policies in some districts and autonomy from district curriculum and professional development (PD) requirements. Barriers to implementation in ObD schools included limited district support for selecting or developing curriculum and PD materials and inflexible district policies.

The study compared ObD teachers’ instructional practices to those of high school teachers nationally. ObD teachers reported more extensive use of instructional practices related to mastery-based learning, personalization, and positive youth development.This research did not find much evidence that ObD’s principles-based design process and supports led to more effective schools, but limitations of the study design and available data may not have adequately captured ObD’s effects. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 78 pages].

Teaching and Leading Through a Pandemic: Key Findings from the American Educator Panels Spring 2020 COVID-19 Surveys

Teaching and Leading Through a Pandemic: Key Findings from the American Educator Panels Spring 2020 COVID-19 Surveys. RAND Corporation. Laura S. Hamilton, Julia H. Kaufman, Melissa Diliberti. June 23, 2020.

Educators and students in schools across the United States have faced sweeping, unprecedented changes to teaching and learning because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which shuttered school buildings in spring 2020. This Data Note presents selected results on several aspects of schooling, including both teachers’ and principals’ perspectives, and it examines inequities in approaches and resources for delivering distance learning across schools serving different student populations. Drawing on the RAND Corporation’s American Educator Panels, researchers surveyed nationally representative samples of K–12 public school teachers and principals in late April and early May 2020 to document how they delivered instruction and other services, what supports and resources they needed, and their expected priorities and plans for the 2020–2021 school year. Researchers found that educators shifted quickly to distance learning and provided a variety of supports, but they indicated needing additional resources. These resources included access to technology and devices for students, teacher training in remote instruction, strategies for motivating students, ways to address loss of students’ hands-on learning opportunities, and strategies to support students’ social and emotional learning. Many teachers indicated that they did not receive adequate support for students with disabilities and homeless students, among other groups. Researchers also identified disparities among the kinds of instruction and other resources provided in schools serving different student populations, which suggests that the pandemic will cause existing inequalities to increase. Principals anticipated prioritizing emergency preparedness, student mental health, and recovering from the learning gaps caused by the pandemic. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 16 pages].

Getting Support for Summer Learning: How Federal, State, City, and District Policies Affect Summer Learning Programs

Getting Support for Summer Learning: How Federal, State, City, and District Policies Affect Summer Learning Programs. RAND Corporation. Catherine H. Augustine, Lindsey E. Thompson. April 14, 2020.

Summer programs offered by school districts can provide academic support and enrichment opportunities to students from low-income families who often lose ground over the summer to their peers from higher-income families. In 2011, The Wallace Foundation launched the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP) to expand summer program opportunities for students in urban districts.
Through the NSLP, The Wallace Foundation provided support to the participating public school districts and their community partners in Boston, Massachusetts; Dallas, Texas; Duval County, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Rochester, New York. RAND researchers assessed the effectiveness of these districts’ voluntary, district-led summer learning programs and found near-term academic benefits in mathematics for all students and benefits in reading and social-emotional domains for students with ample program attendance. These academic benefits also persisted through their school year. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 88 pages].

Illustrating the Promise of Community Schools: An Assessment of the Impact of the New York City Community Schools Initiative

Illustrating the Promise of Community Schools: An Assessment of the Impact of the New York City Community Schools Initiative. RAND Corporation. William R. Johnston et al. January 28, 2020.

With the launch of the New York City Community Schools Initiative (NYC-CS) in 2014, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) has increased its focus on the implementation of a holistic strategy of education reform to address the social consequences of poverty as a means to improving student outcomes. NYC-CS is a strategy to organize resources in schools and share leadership among stakeholders so that academics, health and wellness, youth development, and family engagement are integrated into the fabric of each school. New York City is implementing this strategy at a scale unmatched nationally.
In this study, the authors assessed the impact of the NYC-CS through the 2017–2018 school year. The authors assessed the effects along seven outcome domains and explored the extent to which there is heterogeneity in programmatic impact based on student- and school-level characteristics. The authors leveraged innovative quasi-experimental methodology to determine whether students in the community schools are performing better than they would be had their schools not been designated as Community Schools.
The findings of this report will contribute to the emerging evidence base on the efficacy of the community school strategy and will be useful for other school district– and state-level policymakers interested in developing or refining similar interventions that support students’ and communities’ academic, social, and emotional well-being. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 105 pages].

Supporting Students with High-Incidence Disabilities in U.S. Schools: National Findings from the American Educator Panels

Supporting Students with High-Incidence Disabilities in U.S. Schools: National Findings from the American Educator Panels.  RAND Corporation. Laura Stelitano, Rachel Perera, William R. Johnston. June 27, 2019.

The extent to which students with high-incidence disabilities (SWDs) are afforded effective and specialized instruction depends, in large part, upon the support their teachers receive. Certain teacher supports are essential for effectively serving SWDs, including a supportive school culture, collaboration and planning time, resources and training, and access to data and tools for using data. In this report, we explore the extent to which these supports are available to general and special educators, based on the results of the Measurement, Learning, and Improvement Survey to the RAND American Teacher Panel, a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of teachers. While research has established the importance of these supports, little is known about teachers’ access to them on the nationwide level and about how school-level factors (such as grade levels served, percentage of minority students, and poverty level) influence the prevalence of teacher supports. Overall, teachers’ access to support for serving SWDs varied by type of support, teacher role, and school level. General educators and teachers at the high school level were significantly less likely to report having sufficient access to support. Planning and release time were among the supports least often deemed sufficient by both general and special educators. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 24 pages].

Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success

Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd Ed. Rand Corporation. Heather L. Schwartz et al. November 4, 2018

 The RAND Corporation’s six-year study of the National Summer Learning Project culminates in this final report about district implementation of summer learning programs and presents the best available guidance about how to establish and sustain them. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

 [PDF format, 90 pages].

 

The Value of Out-of-School Time Programs

The Value of Out-of-School Time Programs. RAND Corporation. Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Anamarie Whitaker, Paul Youngmin Yoo. October 23, 2017.

To better understand the value and effectiveness of out-of-school-time (OST) programs, RAND researchers examined programs through the lenses of content, dosage (the hours of content provided), and outcomes measured, focusing on rigorous (i.e., experimental or quasi-experimental) large-scale evaluations and meta-analyses. The overall conclusion is that OST programs are generally effective at producing the primary outcomes that would be expected based on their programming. However, the primary benefits of such programs are often understudied or underreported. When making funding decisions, federal, state, and local governments and private foundations should consider all the benefits that programs provide to youth and families and emphasize program quality. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 22 pages, 262.27 KB].

Summer Learning in Pittsburgh: Exploring Programming Gaps and Opportunities

Summer Learning in Pittsburgh: Exploring Programming Gaps and Opportunities. RAND Corporation. Catherine H. Augustine, Lindsey E. Thompson. September 6, 2017

This report investigates summer program opportunities in Pittsburgh, focusing on free or low-cost programs that provide academic instruction for at least five weeks during the summer. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 16 pages, 1.86 MB].