Communities in the driver’s seat: Intensive training, deep investment power parent-led literacy programs in Oakland
Across the country, school systems are struggling to implement effective, research-based literacy instruction and to help students recover from lost learning time during the pandemic. At the same time, school systems sit near pools of untapped talent—community members who have personally experienced the harm of inequitable school systems and now brim with passion for addressing […]
Teaching, reinvented: How unconventional educator roles pave the way for a more fulfilling and sustainable profession
As school systems struggle to recover from years of disruption, new programs, policies, and nontraditional organizations that support innovation in the teaching role will need to grow to support all students’ learning. But what is it like to teach in new ways? What are the advantages and drawbacks? What brought educators to these unconventional roles […]
State of the American Student 2023
Beyond test scores: Broader academic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on American students
Recent state and national achievement exam results, as well as academic progress reports, have underscored how the Covid-19 pandemic and related school closures had a large, negative impact on students’ reading and math development. But there has been less research conducted on how the pandemic affected other academic measures beyond standardized testing, such as attendance, engagement […]
Innovation in New England
CRPE partnered with The BARR Foundation to map the New England region’s landscape of learning.
Teaching recovery? Three years in, school system leaders report that the pandemic weakened instruction
In this report, we conclude our research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. This report provides a possible explanation for why we continue to see lackluster student test scores (see for example, […]
Despite staff shortages, few districts are making teaching more appealing
The exact cause of teacher shortages is still up for debate. Some experts argue that shortages are localized, while others say that the lack of teachers is due to low unemployment and other factors. Regardless, school systems face big challenges with their teacher workforce, including finding enough teacher candidates and retaining the teachers they have, […]
Student mental health and well-being: A review of evidence and emerging solutions
In the summer of 2022, the Center on Reinventing Public Education convened a panel of education and youth development experts to take stock of recent efforts to address students’ mental health and well-being and to reestablish core elements of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools. CRPE initially convened a group of experts in 2021 […]
Navigating political tensions over schooling: Findings from the fall 2022 American School District Panel survey
Public schooling has always been politically fraught, but current disagreements over issues related to race, sexuality, gender, and Covid-19 have reached a tipping point. According to a new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education and RAND, half of school system leaders say that these disagreements are disrupting schooling. Almost one in three district […]
What do Washington parents think about their students’ charter schools?
In 2014, the first public charter schools opened in Washington state. The development led to years of controversy, but the debates often bypassed the opinions of people with important experience: parents of enrolled students. To begin to remedy this, we conducted a mixed-methods study that asked parents how they selected their student’s charter school, how […]