Over the past four years, CRPE’s Evidence Project has tracked the pandemic’s impact on students and school systems’ recovery efforts. Earlier this year, we concluded that these collective efforts are far from complete—and face growing challenges. Academic achievement remains below pre-pandemic levels, with growth in the 2023-24 school year falling short in nearly all grade levels. Chronic absenteeism has almost doubled from 16% to 30% of students since pre-pandemic days: that’s an estimated 6.5 million more students experiencing chronic absence. Districts, meanwhile, are at the edge of a fiscal cliff and lack the necessary resources to close the gaps. The end of federal funds to support students’ pandemic recovery (ESSER) looms on the horizon. COVID-related enrollment declines mean many school systems already receive less funding for interventions to support learning recovery.
Addressing learning recovery, chronic absenteeism, and districts’ financial challenges is more urgent than ever. Conducting research in these three key topic areas is critical to informing the work of pandemic recovery.
- Interventions to support learning recovery: What challenges are districts currently facing when implementing interventions to support learning recovery? How are they being overcome? What are promising or effective new recovery interventions–especially those designed to reach the students most harmed by the pandemic?
- Understanding and addressing the root causes of chronic absenteeism: What causes are driving persistently high rates of chronic absenteeism? Do current interventions adequately address these causes?
- How districts are confronting difficult financial forecasts: What successful strategies are districts using to reduce expenditures while preserving student experiences and learning?
With generous support from the Walton Family Foundation, we request proposals on these topics for projects up to $500,000 and 18 months in duration. We are most interested in projects that will delve into the root causes of the above issues, “humanize” the effects of the pandemic on students disproportionately impacted or from historically marginalized groups, and generate actionable findings for policymakers and the general public. We are interested in the full range of research methods and disciplinary perspectives.
The deadline for Letters of Intent is August 30, 2024, and invited full proposals will be due October 7, 2024. We encourage applicants to read the full RFP before beginning the submission process.
This RFP is the second round of pandemic recovery sub-grants from the Evidence Project. The first round examined innovative, effective policies and interventions to improve opportunities for students in high school, postsecondary institutions, and work training programs. For this second round, Dr. Morgan Polikoff, Professor of Education at USC, joins the Evidence Project. Dr. Polikoff led our efforts to identify priority topics for investment and will review grant submissions and support researchers to produce actionable insights for the field.
This work strengthens the impact of the Evidence Project, a research effort pioneered by CRPE in early 2020 to convene researchers and accelerate evidence-building to address the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
We continue to curate and share the latest research about schools’ pandemic response and recovery efforts in our biweekly Evidence Project newsletter. We welcome you to read the latest edition and subscribe.
