Education

This week’s summary highlights a few burning questions that have persisted throughout the pandemic – how COVID-19 has affected (1) employment, especially that of parents of school-age children, (2) students’ mental health and wellbeing, and (3) college life. How is Read More

In February, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced the first systematic effort to collect nationally representative data on the status of school reopening and instructional modes across the country. Last week, the first results were released with data from Read More

This week, the CDC issued revised guidance for schools on safe, in-person operation. The main change is a reduction in the physical distancing recommendations from at least 6 feet of space between students in classrooms to at least 3 feet, Read More

Last week, Congress passed, and President Biden signed into law, the American Rescue Plan Act. The legislation has pronounced implications for schools and students with substantial dollars targeted to K-12 education and higher education, funding to support the childcare industry, Read More

One major impediment to research on the relationship between K-12 schooling modes and COVID-19 health metrics—and to better understanding the effects of schooling modes on many outcomes of interest—is the lack of comprehensive, detailed data on school operations and policies. Read More

As school district administrators and policymakers turn to planning for the future, they are increasingly focused on potential interventions for remediating learning and developmental setbacks due to pandemic-caused schooling disruptions. Tutoring interventions have been discussed on the blog in past Read More

The national conversation over K-12 schooling in the context of the pandemic continues fervently, including then President-Elect Joe Biden’s December pledge to reopen most school buildings for in-person instruction as swiftly as possible. New evidence from parent surveys provides an Read More

As school district leaders and educators worry about the ramifications of pandemic-induced disruptions for children’s learning and development, practitioners and policymakers are increasingly focused on interventions that could address disparities and help remediate and catch up lagging skills. Two popular Read More

This week, two new modeling studies contribute new evidence to the conversation about in-person schooling during the pandemic. Both pre-prints (which means they have not yet been peer-reviewed), the studies consider several dimensions of in-person schooling to simulate COVID-19 spread Read More

To date in the COVID-19 pandemic, there has not been reliable, nationwide data on parent experiences with their children’s schooling. Last week, however, researchers released results from a large, nationally representative parent survey, conducted from November to early December 2020. Read More