EdWorkingPapers Policy and Practice Series

The Net Benefits of Raising Bachelor’s Degree Completion through the City University of New York ACE Program

A previous randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated the impact of CUNY’s Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program on bachelor’s degree completion and found students offered ACE were 12 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree within 5 years compared to similar students not offered the program (Scuello and Strumbos, 2024). But how do these short-term outcomes translate into longer-term benefits to taxpayers and society?

Closing the Gaps: An Examination of Early Impacts of Dallas ISD’s Opt-out Policy on Advanced Course Enrollment

In Dallas ISD, a simple policy shift of automatically enrolling qualifying students in Algebra 1 resulted in a 13 percentage point increase in enrollment before high school, with particularly strong gains for Hispanic students. In 2019, the district moved from an “opt-in” to an “opt-out” system, automatically enrolling qualified 5th-grade students in advanced 6th-grade courses, shifting from an opt-in system that often relied on family or teacher advocacy. The results show that when schools remove hidden hurdles, more students, particularly those often left out, get on a path to rigorous coursework and greater opportunities.

Teaching Computational Thinking to Children in Head Start Classrooms: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Christopher Doss, John F. Pane, and Victoria Jones

If we want a broader, more diverse pipeline into high-demand tech fields, the work starts in preschool.

As the demand for digital skills continues to grow, early disparities in access to computing education are turning into long-term opportunity gaps. Students from low-income and historically marginalized communities are often the last to gain exposure to computer science, and by the time they do, the opportunity gap is already wide.

The Impact of High-Impact Tutoring on Student Attendance: Evidence from a State Initiative

This study provides compelling evidence that tutoring can do more than boost test scores; it can actually get students back in the classroom. On average, students were 1.2 percentage points less likely to be absent on days when they were scheduled to receive tutoring, suggesting that they are motivated to participate in tutoring. This impact was even greater for middle schoolers and students who’d missed more than 30% of school days the prior year. The study also found that the design matters: tutoring only improved attendance when it combined at least two evidence-based features like small groups, frequent sessions, and in-school delivery.

The Effects of High School Remediation on Long-Run Educational Attainment

Every year, millions of high school students take remedial courses. In Florida alone, nearly a quarter of high schoolers took a remedial English course during the 2022-23 school year. Remedial courses offer additional instructional time, often with smaller class sizes and differentiated support from qualified teachers, to help struggling students improve in the subject area. Yet despite how common these courses are, we still know very little about how they actually affect students’ chances of success in college.

The Four Day Gamble: The Quasi-Experimental Effects of Four-Day School Week Adoption on Teacher, Principal, and Paraprofessional Staff Turnover and District Financial Outcomes

With education budgets under strain nationwide, a growing number of districts, especially rural districts, have adopted four-day school weeks (4DSW) in an effort to reduce costs. Between 1999 and 2019, 4DSW adoption grew by over 500%, with further acceleration in the years following the pandemic, and nearly 90% of districts with 4DSW are rural. The primary motivators for adopting a 4DSW are to (1) generate cost savings, as one fewer day of classes each week means districts can use fewer resources, leading to lower spending (2) help rural and budget-constrained districts reduce educator turnover by offering improved work-life balance

A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence Linking Mathematics and Science Professional Development Interventions to Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Instruction, and Student Achievement

Professional development (PD) for teachers is one of the most common strategies schools use to improve teaching. But with so many approaches out there, how do we know which ones actually make a difference, and why?

Impacts of Oversubscribed Boston Pre-K Programs through Middle School

This study finds that Boston Public Schools’ (BPS) Pre-K program leads to stronger middle school outcomes than other preschool options. Although differences in outcomes between BPS Pre-K participants and non-participants were small in the early elementary years, some benefits re-emerge in middle school, suggesting a “sleeper effect,” where Pre-K benefits become larger as students continue on their academic trajectory.

The Impacts of Grade Retention Policy With Minimal Retention

This study evaluates Michigan’s third-grade reading policy, which flags students with low reading scores for potential retention. Although few students were actually retained, being flagged led to a small but statistically significant gain in reading achievement, about 0.045 standard deviations (SD), in the following year. The positive effects appear driven not by retention itself, but by increased support from schools and more engagement from families once students were flagged.

Lifting Up Attendance in Rural Districts: A Multi-Site Trial of a Personalized Messaging Campaign

As rural districts continue to struggle with high rates of chronic absenteeism, this study finds that personalized caregiver messages can be a low-cost and effective tool to improve attendance.