Busy pictures hinder reading ability in children

 Reading is the gateway for learning, but one-third of elementary school students in the United States do not read at grade level. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring how the design of reading materials affects literacy development. They find that an overly busy page with extraneous images can draw the reader's attention away from the text, resulting in lower understanding of content.

The results of the study are available in the September issue of the journal npj Science of Learning.

"Learning to read is hard work for many kids," said Anna Fisher, associate professor of psychology and senior author on the paper.

The typical design of books for beginning readers often include engaging and colorful illustrations to help define the characters and setting of the story, offer context for the text and motivate young readers. Fisher and Cassondra Eng, a doctoral candidate in CMU's Department of Psychology and first author on the paper, hypothesized that the extraneous images may draw the reader's eyes away from the text and disrupt the focus necessary to understand the story.

The researchers sought to understand how to support young readers and optimize their experience as they become more fluent readers. In the study, 60 first- and second-grade students from the greater Pittsburgh area were asked to read from a commercially available book designed for reading practice in this age group. Half of the book consisted of the published design and the other half was streamlined, having removed the extraneous images. Each child read from the same book. The team used a portable eye-tracker to monitor the number of times the child's gaze shifted away from the text to images on the page.

To develop the streamlined version of the book, the researchers had a group of adults identify relevant images to the text. To differentiate, extraneous images were defined as entertaining, but nonessential pictures to understand the story. For the streamlined version, the researchers kept the images that 90% of the adult participants agreed were relevant illustrations. All other illustrations were removed.

While the time each child spent on a page was similar, the researchers found that nearly all children reading the streamlined version had lower gaze shifts away from text and higher reading comprehension scores compared to the text in the commercially designed version of the book. In particular, children who are more prone to look away from text benefited the most from the streamlined version of the book.

"During these primary school years, children are in a transition period in which they are increasingly expected to read independently, but even more so in the wake of stay-at-home orders as children are using technology with less in-person guidance from teachers," said Eng. "This is exciting because we can design materials grounded in learning theories that can be most helpful to children and enrich their experiences with technology."

Fisher notes one limitation to this study was that her team only evaluated reading using a single book.

According to Fisher, these findings highlight ways to improve the design of educational materials, especially for beginning readers. By simply limiting extraneous illustrations, children can have an easier time focusing and better reading comprehension as a result.

"This is not a silver bullet and will not solve all challenges in learning to read," said Fisher. "But if we can take steps to make practicing reading a little bit easier and reduce some of the barriers, we [can help children] engage with the printed material and derive enjoyment from this activity."

Fisher and Eng were joined by Karrie Godwin at the University of Maryland Baltimore Country in the project titled, "Keep It Simple: Streamlining Book Illustrations Improves Attention and Comprehension in Beginning Readers." The project received funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.

State K-3 Policies - 50-State Comparison

 

Full report

Following a high-quality early care and pre-K experience, the kindergarten-through-third-grade years set the foundation upon which future learning builds; and strengthening this continuum creates opportunities for later success. Key components of a quality experience in K-3 include school readiness and transitions, kindergarten requirements, educator quality, prevention, intervention and assessments, and social and emotional learning and mental health.

Education Commission of the States researched the policies and regulations that guide these key components in all 50 states to provide this comprehensive resource. 

Key Takeaways

• Nineteen states and the District of Columbia require that children attend kindergarten.
• Seventeen states and the District of Columbia require full-day kindergarten, and 39 states plus the District of Columbia require districts to offer kindergarten either full or half day.
• Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have policies in place to guide the transition process from pre-K to kindergarten, with 17 states requiring family engagement in this process.
• Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia require assessments outside of the federally required third-grade assessments, including screeners, diagnostic, summative and formative assessments.
• Twenty states have literacy instruction requirements for teacher training and professional development, ranging from passing an assessment to receiving job-embedded training.
• Seventeen states and the District of Columbia require grade retention for nonproficient third graders, with good cause exemptions, and an additional 10 states allow for grade retention.
• Seventeen states have a provision in statute or regulation limiting the suspension or expulsion of students in pre-K through third grade.
• Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia define social and emotional learning in statute or regulation, and 28 states have pre-service or in-service standards that require knowledge of the social and emotional learning of students.
• Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia require or encourage teacher training and professional development in student mental health and trauma-informed practices.

Revenues and Expenditures Per Pupil for Public School Districts Increased Between 2016-17 and 2017-18

The national median of total revenues per pupil and expenditures per pupil increased across all public school districts between budget years 2017 and 2018.   A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provides information about revenues and expenditures in the nation’s public school districts for school year 2017-18. The report uses provisional data from the School District Finance Survey (F-33), which state education agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia submit each year. The national median of total revenues per pupil across all LEAs was $13,914 in FY 18, which represents an increase of 2.0 percent from FY 17, after adjusting for inflation. The national median of current expenditures per pupil among all LEAs was $11,722 in FY 18, an increase of 1.7 percent from FY 17.   On a national basis, in the absence of any geographic cost adjustment, in FY 18 median current expenditures per pupil were $10,901 in cities, $13,357 in the suburbs, $10,826 in towns, and $11,918 in rural areas. In FY 18, current expenditures per pupil in the 100 largest public school districts by enrollment ranged from a low of $6,646 in Alpine School District, Utah to a high of $26,588 in New York City Public Schools. The report also provides information on a regional basis, although a geographic cost adjustment was not applied. In FY 18, current expenditures per pupil from the two largest school districts within each state by region were highest in: Northeast: New York City Public Schools, New York ($24,109); and Boston City Schools, Massachusetts ($24,177);  South: District of Columbia Public Schools, District of Columbia ($22,759) and Christina School District, Delaware ($21,408) Midwest: Cleveland City School District, Ohio ($18,273) and St Paul Independent School District 625, Minnesota ($15,564); and West: Hawaii Department of Education, Hawaii ($15,242) and Laramie County School District 1, Wyoming ($15,239) Median current expenditures per pupil in independent charter school districts were lower than median current expenditures per pupil in noncharter and mixed school districts in 23 out of the 30 states that met reporting standards for reporting finance data for independent charter school districts

Girls benefit from doing sports

UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL

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Girls - but not boys - who participate actively in school sports activities in middle childhood show improved behaviour and attentiveness in early adolescence, suggests a new Canadian study published in Preventative Medicine.

"Girls who do regular extracurricular sports between ages 6 and 10 show fewer symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at age 12, compared to girls who seldom do," said Linda Pagani, a professor at Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation.

"Surprisingly, however, boys do not appear to gain any behavioural benefit from sustained involvement in sports during middle childhood," said Pagani, who led the study co-authored by her students Marie-Josée Harbec and Geneviève Fortin and McGill University associate medical professor Tracie Barnett.

As the team prepared their research, "it was unclear to what extent organized physical activity is beneficial for children with ADHD symptoms," recalled Pagani.

"Past studies have varied widely in quality, thus blurring the true association between sport and behavioural development." She added: "On top of that, "past research has not acknowledged that boys and girls are different in how they present ADHD symptoms."

A chance to get organized

ADHD harms children's ability to process information and learn at school, Pagani explained. Sport helps young people develop life skills and supportive relationships with their peers and adults. It offers a chance to get organized under some form of adult influence or supervision.

"Thus, from a public-health perspective, extracurricular sport has the potential to be a positive, non-stigmatizing and engaging approach to promote psychological well-being and could thus be viewed as behaviour therapy for youth with ADHD," Pagani said.

"Sports are especially beneficial if they begin in early childhood. And so, since using concentration and interpersonal skills are essential elements of sport, in our study we undertook to examine whether it would result in reductions in ADHD symptoms over the long term."

Pagani and her team came to their conclusions after examining data from a Quebec cohort of children born in 1997 and 1998, part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development coordinated by the Institut de la statistique du Québec.

Parents of the 991 girls and 1,006 boys in the study reported on whether their sons and daughters were in an extracurricular physical activity that required a coach or instructor between ages 6 and 10. At age 12 years, teachers rated the children's behaviour compared to their classmates. Pagani's team then analyzed the data to identify any significant link between sustained participation and later ADHD symptoms, discarding many possible confounding factors.

"Our goal was to eliminate any pre-existing conditions of the children or families that could throw a different light on our results," said Pagani.

'Boys more impulsive'

Why do girls with ADHD benefit from sports, but not boys?

"In childhood, boys with ADHD are more impulsive and more motor-skilled than girls -- as a result, boys are more likely to receive medication for their ADHD, so faster diagnosis and treatment for boys in middle childhood could diminish the detectable benefits of sport," Pagani said. "They might be there; they're just harder to tease out."

"In girls, on the other hand, ADHD is more likely to go undetected -- and girls' difficulties may be even more tolerated at home and in school. Parents of boys, by contrast, might be more inclined to enroll them in sports and other physical activities to help them."

She added: "We know that sporting activities have other numerous benefits for mental health of all children. However, for reducing ADHD symptoms, middle childhood sports in elementary school seem more noteworthy for girls."

That's why structured extracurricular activities that demand physical skill and effort under the supervision of a coach or instructor could be valuable to any official policy aimed at promoting behavioral development, the UdeM researchers maintain.

Concluded Pagani: "Sports activities in early childhood can help girls develop essential social skills that will be useful later and ultimately play a key role in their personal, financial and economic success."

Survey of High School Principals: Strong Response to COVID 19, But Exacerbated Inequities

 

In a first look at the impact of COVID 19 on American High schools, a new national survey by UCLA of high school principals finds schools stepping up strongly to respond to the needs of students confronted by illness, economic insecurity and homelessness, stress and anxiety and even death, but challenged by the pervasive inequities that have for too long undermined schools and communities. 

Full report

“The results of this survey make two things very clear, says John Rogers, education professor and director of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA who led the survey. “Public schools have responded heroically, playing a critical role in supporting students and sustaining communities threatened by the deadly virus and economic shutdown. But the inequities that plague our schools have been exacerbated by the pandemic, impeding learning for those students in communities already greatly challenged by economic and social inequalities.” 

The survey, Learning Lessons: U.S. Public High Schools and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spring 2020, reports the responses of a nationally representative sample of 344 high school principals questioned in May and June 2020 after schools closed campuses and transitioned to distance learning amid the pandemic States in the Northeast and part of the South last spring bore the full brunt of the pandemic. In those regions, one principal describes the “intensity of the problems we’ve faced ... death, loss of jobs, anxiety, depression.” Another noted that her students had “suffered losses … neighbors dying … people afflicted.” Even in other states where rates of infection were dramatically lower, the effects of the economic dislocation created by the national lockdown were experienced widely. One principal of a socio-economically diverse school in urban Washington, remembered “seeing families thrust into poverty so quickly and waiting in food lines.” 

In the survey, 59 percent of principals who responded said they had helped students and families access and navigate health services. Seventy-seven percent provided access to mental health counseling. Nearly half, 50 percent, provided support to students experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness. Almost a third of principals provided financial support to students and their families. Sadly, 43 percent of principals reported providing support for students who experienced death in their families.

 

“These findings underscore the critical role schools play in their communities, Rogers said. “More than two-thirds of principals reported their school or district provided meals to family members of students who were not enrolled in the school. 

And while principals of almost all schools provided meals to students, nearly half of principals of high poverty schools provided meals to more students. As the pandemic accelerated last Spring, the transition to remote learning for schools was abrupt and immediate. But the transition to remote instruction was not the same for all schools and students. 

Inequality in learning opportunities was exacerbated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The digital divide was a prime cause. While many educators and key staff struggled to move online in the early days of the transition, low poverty schools were more than three times as likely (25% to 8%) as high poverty schools to have all staff supplied with necessary technology when they transitioned to remote instruction. 

There were also differences in the readiness for remote instruction of teachers and schools. In those schools that entered the pandemic with a strong technological infrastructure, educators and students were able to draw upon previous experience to support remote instruction. Schools with low levels of poverty were most likely to “swiftly” take up remote instruction, high poverty schools and rural schools often struggled during the transition. 

Principals also reported great variability in student access to the technology hardware and connectivity needed to participate from home. High poverty schools were more than 8 times (34% to 4%) as likely to experience a severe shortage of technology at the time of transition—at least half of their students lacked the necessary technology. 

Schools with high levels of poverty provided technology to the most students, and principals in these schools spent more time distributing and troubleshooting technology than principals in other schools. 

The survey makes clear that the impact of remote instruction has significant implications for educational equity. Many high schools had difficulty providing necessary supplementary services for English Learners and Special Education students. More than 40% of all principals reported that their school did not supply English Learners with instructional materials—either online or in print packets—in their home language. 

And a majority of principals reported that their school did not provide the same quality of services for students with disabilities (such as occupational therapy or counseling) as prior to the pandemic. 

Two thirds of principals also reported that fewer students than prior to the pandemic were able to keep up with their assigned work. In 43% of schools, more than a quarter of students were not able to keep up with assignments during remote instruction. This problem was far more likely to occur in high poverty schools than in low poverty schools. 

And while some students fell behind, others ceased participating at all during remote instruction. Nearly half of principals reported that they have had difficulty maintaining contact with at least 10% of their students. In some instances, principals were not able to establish any contact with a subset of their student body. Principals in high poverty schools were several times more likely than principals in low poverty schools to report difficulties contacting large numbers of students. 

“These findings reveal exceptional efforts by school principals across the country, but also make clear that the inequities confronting schools amid the pandemic map directly onto the pre-existing social inequalities that unfairly affect our most vulnerable students,” Rogers said. “As we have moved to remote instruction, economically disadvantaged communities have been disproportionately impacted.” 

“To their great credit, Schools have played a strong role in the nation’s response to the pandemic,’ Rogers said. “But many principals said they do not want to return to schools as they were. They see the COVID 19 crisis as an opportunity to reset and reflect on values and beliefs, to shift the way students are taught or even dismantle broken systems in a broader reinvention of teaching and learning. 

“Creating those public schools will require a well-functioning civil society. Only by nurturing a shared public commitment to the well-being and development of all young people, will we ensure that public schools can fulfill their important role.” 

Learning Lessons: U.S. Public High Schools and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spring 2020,, is a project of the Institute for Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The full report of the survey findings is available online at https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/publications/learning-lessons-us-public-high-schools-andthe-covid-19-pandemic/

Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income Students

Financial aid from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) provides exceptionally generous support to a college population similar to that served by a host of state aid programs. In conjunction with STBF, this study randomly assigned aid awards to thousands of Nebraska high school graduates from low-income, minority, and first-generation college households. 

Randomly- assigned STBF awards boost bachelor's (BA) degree completion for students targeting four-year schools by about 8 points. Degree gains are concentrated among four-year applicants who would otherwise have been unlikely to pursue a four-year program. Degree effects are mediated by award-induced increases in credits earned towards a BA in the first year of college. The extent of initial four-year college engagement explains heterogeneous effects by target campus and across covariate subgroups. Most program spending is a transfer, reducing student debt without affecting degree attainment. Award-induced marginal spending is modest. The projected lifetime earnings impact of awards exceeds marginal educational spending for all of the subgroups examined in the study. Projected earnings gains exceed funder costs for low-income, non-white, urban, and first-generation students, and for students with relatively weak academic preparation.

Neurotic college students could benefit from health education

Enrolling in health education courses may help change student's beliefs about stress

College students are under a lot of stress, even more so lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on certain personality types, especially neurotic personalities, college health courses could help students develop a more positive stress mindset, according to research from faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

A research team including Binghamton University Health and Wellness Studies Lecturer Jennifer Wegmann sought to evaluate the impact of health education on the change of stress mindset and also to explore the role of personality in the change of stress mindset when there is a specific focus on improving individual health and well-being. Specifically, they sought to assess the relationship between each personality dimension (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness) and stress mindset change over time.

"The findings surrounding specific personality dimensions were interesting," said Wegmann. "It appears that engaging in health education is beneficial in changing perceptions of stress for some students but not all -- based on personality. For example, significant changes were elicited in students who scored high on the neuroticism scale but no significance was shown for students on the extroversion scale. Neurotic students tend to be worriers with high anxiety. The findings of this research show how focusing on their health, in general, can change these typically high-stressed students' beliefs about the stress they experience."

The researchers conducted an online survey with a group of 423 students taking a college health education course. They asked students to rate the extent to which they agreed with a series of statements. Analyzing the data, the researchers found that students with specific personality types, especially neurotic students, were more likely to improve their stress mindset by engaging in health education.

Wegmann said the most interesting thing about these findings is that change in stress mindset was elicited not through focusing on stress and changing mindsets specifically, but rather by students focusing on their overall health and wellness. Colleges may not have the faculty, space or funding to provide stress-specific courses, but this research shows there is another avenue to help students navigate their stress, Wegmann said.

"This is important for several reasons," said Wegmann. "First, helping students develop a more positive or enhancing stress mindset has been associated with improved mental health, increased performance and productivity. Second, general health education courses are available to large numbers of students. There typically are few, if any, stress-specific courses offered on college campuses,' and if they are offered, many are limited in student capacity."

Wegmann said that the next step is to work on discovering what approach will be helpful for all students.

"According to our research, this approach was not helpful for everyone," said Wegmann. "While these findings are providing novel and interesting information, as a stress researcher who works to help students become more productive and healthy, I want to know what other avenues will reach our students."

###

The paper, "Health Education and Changing Stress Mindsets: The Moderating Role of Personality," was published in the American Journal of Health Education.

Race and Ethnicity of Public School Teachers and Their Students

 

The National Center for Education Statistics released a new Data Point report entitled Race and Ethnicity of Public School Teachers and Their Students. The report includes the following findings: In the 2017–18 school year, 79 percent of public school teachers were White and non-Hispanic. About 9 percent of teachers were Hispanic (of any race), and 7 percent were Black and non-Hispanic. Two percent of teachers identified as Asian and non-Hispanic, 2 percent as Two or more races and non-Hispanic, and less than 1 percent as Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic. Teachers of a given race/ethnicity were more often found in schools where their race/ethnicity matched a majority of the student body. For example, at schools in which a majority of students were Black, about one-third (36 percent) of teachers were Black, non-Hispanic. This was higher than the percentage of Black, non-Hispanic teachers at schools with other student body racial and ethnic compositions. At the same time, in schools where the majority of students were not White, the majority of teachers tended to be White. The majority of teachers were White in schools where a majority of students were Hispanic (54 percent), Black (54 percent), Asian (60 percent), or American Indian/Alaska Native (61 percent). That is, a larger percentage of teachers were White than were of the same race/ethnicity as the majority of students.

Quizzes improve academic performance

About a year ago, a conversation during a faculty meeting piqued Marcus Crede's interest. A senior faculty member in Iowa State University's Department of Psychology said that he believed frequent quizzes help students better grasp classroom material. Crede, an associate professor of psychology, was skeptical that something as simple as a quiz could positively impact students' academic performance. He decided to dig deeper and conduct a meta-analytic study of existing research to see if there was any merit to the claim. What he discovered truly surprised him.

"I have a long history of trying to understand the variables that contribute to learning and performance in the classroom," Crede said. "For me, this study is part of a larger effort to understand what works and what doesn't work. It turned out to be a much more interesting paper than I thought it was going to be. I was surprised."

The study

Crede teamed up with psychology graduate student Lukas Sotola, who took the lead on much of the research. They analyzed data from previously published studies that examined 52 classes with almost 8,000 students, primarily college-level courses, to determine if frequent quizzes improved the students' academic performance. Laboratory settings were excluded from the study because Crede and Sotola wanted to observe whether similar studies from labs would apply to general classrooms. They defined quizzes as low-stakes assessments of learned material that occurred at least once a week.

Crede emphasizes that this study did not involve true experiments, where some students were randomly assigned quiz conditions and others were not.

"As soon as we don't have random assignments, we can't be 100% certain that the difference is really do to the quizzes. It could be something else."

Nevertheless, the results suggest there may be a strong link between frequent quizzing and student success.

The study's results are detailed in the paper, "Regarding Class Quizzes: A Meta-analytic Synthesis of Studies on the Relationship Between Frequent Low-stakes Testing and Class Performance," published last month in the journal Educational Psychology Review.

A few surprises

Crede and Sotola discovered that when students are quizzed over class material at least once a week, they tend to perform better on midterm and final exams compared to students who did not take quizzes. They also found that students who took frequent quizzes were less likely to fail the class, especially if they were struggling with the course content.

"I was surprised the effect of quizzes was relatively strong," Crede said. "I was skeptical. I didn't think this would have much of an effect. The other surprising thing was how much quizzes helped reduce failure rates in classes. The odds of passing a class went through the roof where instructors used this."

Even if quizzes only modestly impact students' ability to pass a class, Sotola said this tool should be part of an instructor's teaching curriculum.

"A modest effect can have a large impact over the course of many years," Sotola said. "If quizzes improve performance and lead to even a slightly lower percentage of students failing their classes, then that will presumably have positive effects on graduation and drop-out rates down the road, which will save students and institutions time and money."

Crede noted that students who struggle the most in a class seem to benefit the greatest from frequent quizzes. This is a profound finding, he said, especially since implementing short quizzes into course curriculum is a relatively simple task.

"In many universities, including Iowa State, there's often concern about drop-out rates and failure rates, and so the fact that we can apparently do so much with so little effort is really encouraging for us," Crede said.

In addition to quiz frequency, another factor that seemed to positively impact students' performance was immediate feedback from instructors. Also, Crede and Sotola said quizzes that required students to answer with written responses proved more beneficial to their understanding of class material compared to multiple-choice questions, though their pool of data for this particular aspect of the study was small.

"You have to be cautious about the amount of data we have, but multiple-choice questions seem to be a little less effective than what we call a constructive-response question, when you actually have to come up with the answer yourself," Crede said. "It's about recognizing the right answer and actually remembering what the right answer is."

Crede acknowledges that asking teachers to grade written quizzes daily or weekly may discourage some from implementing them in their classes. Instead, he recommends instructors utilize online quizzes that can be automatically graded by a course management system, such as Canvas.

Crede and Sotola said some quiz attributes proved insignificant in their study, including whether the tests were pop quizzes versus planned, or if they were online or on paper. No matter how they are delivered, Crede and Sotola agree that their study shows frequent quizzes with immediate instructor feedback help students, especially those who are having difficulties, succeed in the classroom.

"The impact on struggling students was really remarkable," Crede said. "Again, we only have data on about 1,000 students, but it's really quite dramatic. If it's even remotely in that neighborhood, this is something we should all be doing."

More than a billion school meals not served during pandemic: Study

Major efforts by states and school districts make up some of the gaps, but shortfalls remain

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to low or no-cost school breakfast and lunch programs for millions of low-income children. States and school districts developed innovative solutions to meet the nutritional needs of children and respond to the rapidly growing food insecurity crisis, yet the number of replacement meals is likely far short of what they provided prior to the pandemic, according to a study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are published in the American Journal of Public Health.

First author Eliza W. Kinsey, PhD, associate research scientist in epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School, and colleagues estimate that more than 1.15 billion breakfasts and lunches for American students who receive free and reduced-price meals were not served in school as a result of school closures during the nine-week period between March 9 and May 1.

By the week of March 23, all states had mandated statewide school closures as a result of the pandemic, and the number of weekly missed breakfasts and lunches served at school reached a peak of approximately 169.6 million (this weekly estimate remained steady through the final week of April). In Maryland, which the researchers studied in depth, every day schools were closed, 493,917 free or reduced-price meals were not served in school (the equivalent of 2,469,585 meals per week). While Maryland estimates that by the week of April 20, they were distributing 1 million replacement meals to students weekly, this still represents a roughly 1.5 million meal weekly shortfall. Similarly, major cities like New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco provided far fewer meals than they would have otherwise.

These shortfalls came despite significant efforts at all levels. The USDA issued waivers that allowed states and localities to find new ways to provide meals to students who need them. Due to increased community need, some districts offered grab-and-go meals in outdoor locations and expanded meal distribution to seven days per week. Home delivery has been another common approach, especially in rural districts, and in many districts, school meal access was expanded to include to any child age up to age 18 years and students with disabilities up to age 26.

Some districts provided up to one week of meals at once to decrease staff exposure and improve convenience for parents and students. Even so, concerns about viral exposure remain, as staff, students, or families gather to prepare, distribute, or pick up meals. Several districts suspended meal service, particularly after employees tested positive for the virus. While efforts to facilitate contactless delivery support social distancing, foodservice staff who lack access to personal protective equipment including gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer--items in short supply across all sectors--have expressed concerns about being exposed to the virus and transmitting it to others.

"Children across the country are missing out on the critical school meals they relied on when schools were in session. Despite the heroic efforts of school nutrition professionals, generous private sector donations, and increased program flexibility, it is unlikely that school districts will be able to replace, through emergency meal distribution programs, all meals that were previously being provided in school," the authors write.

Future studies can provide insight into factors that enabled schools to respond more effectively and the distribution models and practices that contributed to success. In addition, it will be important to understand the extent to which federal pandemic electronic benefits transfer (P-EBT)-- monetary benefits to households with children who have temporarily lost access to free or reduced-price school meals--has supplemented or replaced current meal distribution programs, and the effect each of these efforts have on child food security. (As of May 1, 2020, USDA had only approved P-EBT implementation in 18 states and few states had begun distributing benefits.)

"These findings will provide important lessons to rapidly deploy alternative nutrition assistance to families during future crises," the authors conclude.

Public school teachers earn about 20% less in weekly wages than nonteacher college graduates

Complete report

As we have shown in our more than a decade and a half of work on the topic, there has been a long-trending erosion of teacher wages and compensation relative to other college graduates.1 Simply put, teachers are paid less (in wages and compensation) than other college-educated workers with similar experience and other characteristics, and this financial penalty discourages college students from entering the teaching profession and makes it difficult for school districts to keep current teachers in the classroom.

This report was produced in collaboration with the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Teacher compensation is not just an issue of staffing: Effective teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student educational performance. To promote children’s success in school, schools must retain credentialed teachers and ensure that teaching remains an attractive career option for college-bound students. Our previous report (Allegretto and Mishel 2019) explains in more detail why providing teachers with a decent middle-class living commensurate with other professionals with similar education is not simply a matter of fairness but necessary to enhance student and economic performance.

We provide this update to our long-standing series on the teacher wage and compensation penalty as the U.S. continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic consequences. While the data in this paper are through 2019 and thus predate the pandemic, our analysis may provide useful insights as schools struggle to reopen. As a country we have yet to make the necessary investments, and pass the needed policies and procedures (e.g., universal mask requirements and testing, tracing, and isolating protocols) that would allow us to achieve some semblance of normalcy. Teachers and other school staff will continue the business of educating students in these trying times. They and their unions will play a critical role in moving forward in an effective and safe environment.

Key findings

• The teacher wage penalty has grown substantially since the mid-1990s. The teacher wage penalty is how much less, in percentage terms, public school teachers are paid in weekly wages relative to other college-educated workers (after accounting for factors known to affect earnings such as education, experience, and state residence). The regression-adjusted teaching wage penaltywas 6.0% in 1996. In 2019, the penalty was 19.2%, reflecting a 2.8 percentage-point improvement compared with a penalty of 22.0% a year earlier.
• The teacher wage penalty declined in the wake of recent teacher strikes but only time and more data will reveal whether teachers’ actions led to a decline and a turning point. The lessening of the teaching penalty from 22.0% in 2018 to 19.2% in 2019 may reflect pay raises enacted in the wake of widespread strikes and other actions by teachers in 2018 and 2019, particularly in some of the states where teacher pay lagged the most. Unfortunately, the data we have to date are not sufficient to allow us to identify the geographic locus of the improvements in teacher wages and benefits and any association with the recent wave of teacher protests and strikes. Only time will tell if this single data point marks a turning point in teacher pay.

• The wage premium that women teachers experienced in the 1960s and 1970s has been replaced by a significant wage penalty. As noted in our previous research, women teachers enjoyed a 14.7% wage premium in 1960, meaning they were paid 14.7% more than comparably educated and experienced women in other occupations. In 2019, women teachers were earning 13.2% less in weekly wages than their nonteaching counterparts were—a 27.9 percentage-point swing over the last six decades.
• The wage penalty for men in teaching is much larger than it is for women in the profession, and it too has worsened considerably. The teacher wage penalty for men was 16.6% in 1979. In 2019, male teachers earned 30.2% less than similar male college graduates who chose a different profession. This explains, to a large degree, why only one in four teachers are men.

• While teacher wage penalties have worsened over time, some of the increase may be attributable to a tradeoff school districts make between pay and benefits. In other words, school districts may not be giving teachers raises but are instead offering stable or slightly better benefits, such that benefits make up a larger share of the overall compensation package for teachers than for other professionals. In 2019, nonwage benefits made up a greater share of total compensation for teachers (29.3%) than for other professionals (21.4%). In 2004, nonwage benefits share of compensation was 20.7% for teachers and 18.7% for other professionals.
• The benefits advantage of teachers has not been enough to offset the growing wage penalty. The teacher total compensation penalty was 10.2% in 2019 (composed of a 19.2% wage penalty offset by a 9.0% benefits advantage). The bottom line is that the teacher total compensation penalty grew by 7.5 percentage points from 1993 to 2019.

• The teacher wage penalty exceeds 20% in 21 states and in the District of Columbia. Teacher weekly wage penalties for each state, computed using pooled 2014–2019 data, range from 2.0% in Wyoming to 32.7% in Virginia. In 21 states and the District of Columbia teachers are paid less than 80 cents on the dollar earned by similar college-educated workers.

Systematic parental training helps the well-being of preschool children with ADHD

 Research findings from Aarhus University and the Central Denmark Region's Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Centre show that quality of life is poorer for preschool children with ADHD compared to children from the control population. But the children's quality of life can be significantly improved using treatment without medication.

Hyperactivity, difficulty concentrating, impulsive behaviour and problems adapting to the social ground rules. These are some of the areas in which children with ADHD struggle and which affect their everyday lives. For the first time, researchers have now systematically examined the quality of life of preschool children with ADHD.

The study shows that children with ADHD have a reduced quality of life, especially with regard to the psychosocial aspect of quality of life compared to children without a diagnosis, whereas there was not found any major difference in the physical aspect. The child's psychosocial quality of life has an effect on a wide range of behaviour and activities connected with social, psychological and emotional well-being.

Specialised parental training

However, the good news is that the children's well-being significantly increased after treatment.

"We examined whether treating ADHD symptoms with non-pharmalogical treatment had a positive effect on the quality of life and the factors that help improve the quality of life," explains medical student Liva Bundgaard Larsen, who, under the supervision of senior researchers, was the research year student behind the study .

As part of a larger treatment study (D'SNAPP) which included 164 children aged between three and seven with severe ADHD requiring treatment, the parents were asked to complete questionnaires about their child's overall quality of life before the treatment started, immediately after the treatment, and 36 weeks after the end of the treatment.

"Half of the participants received the usual treatment without medication, while the other half received specialised parental training targeted at the individual family. We looked at the effect of both types of treatment, and in both cases the children scored significantly higher on the psychosocial score in quality of life after completing the treatment," says Liva Bundgaard Larsen and emphasises that the improvement of the quality of life was shown to last 36 weeks after the treatment was completed.

Better social skills

The study also showed that parents gained more self-confidence and the family's level of stress was lower. This also had a positive effect on the child's quality of life.

"We can improve the quality of life of preschool children with ADHD through targeted efforts in relation to their parents. In the long term, this may have great significance for their prognosis," explains the researcher.

Improved quality of life may have an impact on the child's self-esteem and increase the likelihood of gaining better social skills. Later in life this increases the chances that the child complete an education and joining the labour market.

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The results are published in the scientific journal Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Texting Parents Improves Attendance in Elementary School

A new report finds that text messaging parents in specific ways improved attendance among 26,000 elementary school students. Can Texting Parents Improve Attendance in Elementary School? presents findings from a study that tested four versions of an adaptive text messaging strategy. In the fall parents were randomly assigned to receive “basic” messaging—texts about the importance of attendance and same day absence notifications—or just usual school communications. In the spring, messages were adapted as needed, with parents of frequently absent students receiving “intensified” messaging and others continuing with basic messaging. Students whose parents received text messages were compared to students whose parents did not to see which, if any, of the versions would improve attendance and achievement. Key findings include: All four versions of the adaptive text messaging strategy reduced chronic absence (missing 10 percent or more of school days). The messaging lowered the expected chronic absence rate by 2 to 7 percentage points, with the larger reductions for students with a prior history of high absence. The text messaging strategy did not improve third through fifth grade reading or math achievement after one school year. Addressing student attendance, whether virtual or in-person, may be particularly challenging in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. At a cost of 7 to 8 dollars per student, this low-cost text messaging strategy is something districts may want to consider. A subsequent guide will provide information on how to implement the adaptive texting strategy in schools.

Teacher Preparation and Employment Outcomes of Beginning Teachers

Full report

REL Northeast & Islands examined employment outcomes for beginning teachers in Rhode Island who completed a teacher preparation program in the state between 2012/13 and 2016/17 and went on to teach for at least one year in the state public school system. The study found: After three years about a third of the teachers were still teaching in their initial school. A third were teaching at another school in the state public school system, and a third were no longer teaching in the state public school system. Three-year mobility, retention, and attrition rates varied by teacher certification field. Teachers with special education certification had the highest mobility rate, while teachers with early childhood certification had the highest retention rate. After one year and after three years, the mobility, retention, and attrition rates of beginning teachers did not differ significantly across individual teacher preparation program providers, except in the case of one private provider offering only an alternative program. Teachers who were trained at that private provider had a higher one-year retention rate and a lower three-year retention rate than teachers who were trained at the state’s two largest providers. The study also found that each year from 2010/11 through 2016/17, an average of 25 percent of the district’s teachers left their school and 8 percent left the district. During the first five years of teaching, 77 percent of teachers left their school and 45 percent left the district.  Turnover rates were highest for teachers who taught middle school grades, teachers who missed more than 10 days of school a year, teachers who identified as Black, teachers who had previously changed schools, and teachers who had low evaluation ratings.  Teacher turnover was higher in schools where teachers had a less positive view of the school climate.  School climate mattered more for teachers with higher evaluation ratings than for teachers with lower evaluation ratings. The findings from this study can help state and local education agency leaders and the state’s teacher preparation program providers review the preparation fields offered and how they align with state needs and in considering the implications for policies, practices, and supports for teacher candidates and beginning teachers.

The association between teacher leadership and student achievement

Full report

Teacher leadership is commonly discussed in educational research and practice. Yet, the relationship between teacher leadership and student achievement has not been soundly established by empirical evidence. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which teacher leadership was related to students’ academic achievement. 

The results revealed that teacher leadership was positively related to student achievement (r = .19). Among seven dimensions of teacher leadership which were all positively associated with student achievement, facilitating improvements in curriculum, instruction, and assessment has shown strongest relationship. 

The results of subgroup analysis indicated the relationships were similar among studies conceptualizing teacher leadership and using outcome measures differently, and for elementary and secondary school students. However, published studies reported larger effect sizes than unpublished studies. The implications and limitations are discussed.

Teacher Turnover and Access to Effective Teachers

Teacher turnover can be expensive and disruptive to schools and students and can reduce access to effective teachers. A new REL Mid-Atlantic report examines access to effective teachers, factors related to teacher turnover, and the role of turnover in the equitable distribution of effective teachers in the School District of Philadelphia. The study examined teachers who taught kindergarten through grade 12 in school years 2010/11 through 2016/17. Key findings include: Effective teachers were distributed unevenly throughout the district, but gaps in access to effective teachers differed for different measures of teacher effectiveness. On average, 25 percent of teachers left their school each year, with most of these teachers changing schools within the district (17 percent) rather than leaving the district (8 percent). Teacher grade level taught, attendance, race/ethnicity, prior school changes, effectiveness score, and school climate had the strongest relationships with teacher turnover. After other factors related to turnover were accounted for, teachers of middle school grades, teachers who were frequently absent, and teachers who identified as Black were more likely to leave their school. Teachers who had previously changed schools, teachers who had lower effectiveness scores, and teachers in schools with a poorer school climate were also more likely to leave.