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 […]
Back to school, but not caught up: After school reopenings, administrators eager to tackle learning loss continue to face challenges

In this report, we update our ongoing research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what system leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. The report is part of the American School District Panel, a research partnership between the RAND Corporation […]
How has the pandemic affected students with disabilities? An update on the evidence: Fall 2022

This report is the second installment of an updated set of papers that assess the best available evidence on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected America’s students. The Center on Reinventing Public Education has compiled hundreds of studies and convened multiple panels of education experts to interpret the data. Three initial reports released in 2021 […]