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Academic Achievement Gap

Research Brief
Getting Students to and Through Advanced Math
Students who take precalculus, calculus, and advanced placement math classes get a leg up when it comes to securing college admission and careers in STEM fields. But a large portion of U.S. high school students don't take advanced math. What explains this gap, and what can be done to close it?
Apr 17, 2023
Report
Supporting Students in Foster Care
State and federal policymakers have passed legislation designed to promote collaboration between the education and child welfare systems with the goal of improving educational stability for youth in foster care and, in turn, their educational outcomes. But there are barriers to cross-system collaboration.
Apr 4, 2023
Report
Getting Students to (and Through) Advanced Math: Where Course Offerings and Content Are Not Adding Up
High schoolers who take advanced math have advantages in college admissions and in securing STEM careers. This report examines how students' opportunities to prepare for and take advanced math courses in the United States differ by school context.
Mar 21, 2023
Report
Supporting Equitable Math Instruction in California: Findings from the 2022 Learn Together Survey and the 2022 American Instructional Resources Survey
In 2023, California will implement a new statewide math framework that will drive curriculum decisions for years to come. Researchers leveraged data collected from California math teachers to paint a picture of math instruction throughout the state.
Mar 21, 2023
Tool
How the Effects of Racial Bias Compound
Researchers illustrate the ways in which small effects of racial bias can compound over lifetimes. Users of this tool can adjust the amount of racial bias to see its effects on educational achievement, income growth, and wealth accumulation.
Jul 27, 2022
Report
One Year into the Pandemic, What Secondary Math Teachers Said About Challenges to Standards-Aligned Instruction and Skipping Content
The authors use 2020 and 2021 Learn Together Survey data to examine challenges to standards-aligned instruction during COVID-19 reported by secondary math teachers and how frequently and why these teachers skipped standards-aligned math content.
May 11, 2022
Commentary
Commit Now to Get Summer Programming Right
When summer programs are targeted to needs, intentionally designed, and well attended, they produce positive outcomes in math and reading. But these programs need federal support, and they require early planning.
Apr 15, 2021
Report
Adapting Course Placement Processes in Response to COVID-19 Disruptions: Guidance for Schools and Districts
Because of the pandemic, spring 2020 end-of-year assessments were canceled and schools began the 2020-2021 year without assessment data. The authors compare three strategies to estimate missing test scores and help with course placement decisions.
Feb 16, 2021
Journal Article
Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time
Using internet searches, we study real-time demand for online learning resources. Internet searches for online learning resources doubled during the pandemic. Increases were larger in are as with higher income and better internet access. The pandemic will likely widen achievement gaps along these dimensions.
Feb 3, 2021
Report
Do Teachers Perceive That Their Main Instructional Materials Meet English Learners' Needs? Key Findings from the 2020 American Instructional Resources Survey
In this Data Note, researchers draw on data from the spring 2020 American Instructional Resources Survey to examine teachers' perceptions of how their main materials meet the needs of English learners.
Jan 27, 2021
Report
Every Summer Counts: A Longitudinal Analysis of Outcomes from the National Summer Learning Project
This seventh report in a series presents longitudinal findings on the effectiveness of voluntary summer learning programs in five school districts. The authors also offer implications for policy on narrowing the achievement gap between students.
Dec 17, 2020
Multimedia
COVID-19 and the Digital Divide: Inequities in Online Learning
RAND senior policy researcher Julia Kaufman explains how the digital divide impacted teaching and learning when schools closed last spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Oct 16, 2020
Report
The Digital Divide and COVID-19
Findings from a survey of U.S. teachers reveal how limited home internet access has been a barrier to providing instruction amid pandemic-related school closures. The problem is particularly acute among high-poverty schools.
Sep 24, 2020
Journal Article
Not Where You Start, but How Much You Grow: An Addendum to the Coleman Report
The Coleman Report (1966) first suggested that schools play a relatively small part in shaping students' achievement. The results in this paper suggest a need to update this conventional wisdom.
Jul 28, 2020
Journal Article
School's Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities
We use a novel data set with more than 200 million test scores for students across the United States to explore whether the "fanning out" of achievement from Grades 1 to 8 occurs while students are in school or during the intervening summers.
Jul 28, 2020
Report
Using Data to Support the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching Initiative: Data Collection, Metric and Dashboard Creation, and Lessons Learned
The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative was a multiyear effort to improve student outcomes by increasing access to effective teaching. The authors discuss challenges in measuring effectiveness and how the team addressed them.
Mar 5, 2020
Report
Investing in Successful Summer Programs: A Review of Evidence Under the Every Student Succeeds Act
This report, which provides a systematic review of the evidence supporting summer programs and descriptions of evidence-based programs, is intended to provide guidance regarding the effectiveness of summer interventions.
Jun 5, 2019
Journal Article
Pittsburgh Equity Indicators: A Baseline Measurement for Enhancing Equity in Pittsburgh
The 2018 Pittsburgh Equity Indicators report in enables the comparison of two years of data to measure change in disparities. The report includes information on equality scores for 2017 and 2018, as well as "change scores" between years.
Apr 24, 2019
Journal Article
Pittsburgh Equity Indicators: A Baseline Measurement for Enhancing Equity in Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Equity Indicators assess annual progress toward equitable opportunities and outcomes for Pittsburghers of all races, genders, and incomes. The 2017 report summarizes baseline equality scores, which measure disparities in Pittsburgh.
Apr 24, 2019
Commentary
The Potential for Early Years Programmes to Close the Disadvantage Gap Is Under-Examined
Many schools are looking to close the disadvantage gap in their communities, but they need more evidence about what actually works. Research that helps policymakers and practitioners understand how early years interventions can promote equity and close the disadvantage gap is needed.
Oct 12, 2018

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Research conducted by

RAND Education and Labor

Researcher Spotlight

Stacey Yi

Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School, and Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND

Stacey Yi (she/her) is an assistant policy researcher at RAND and a Ph.D. student in the Community-Partnered Policy and Action stream at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She has an M.P.H. in health management from the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and a B.A. in ecology…
Karen Christianson

Policy Analyst

Karen Christianson (she/her) is a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Her research interests include the design, implementation, and evaluation of educational programs and policies. She is particularly interested in efforts to eliminate racial and socioeconomic opportunity gaps in education.…

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