Social Interactions, Information, and Preferences for Schools

 This paper measures parents' beliefs about school and peer quality, how information about each affects school choices, and how social interactions mediate these effects. Parents underestimate school quality and overestimate peer quality. Cross-randomized school and peer quality information combined with a spillover design shows that when parents received information, they and their neighbors' preferences shifted toward higher value-added schools, underscoring stronger tastes for school quality and the role of social interactions. Increased enrollment in effective schools improved socio-emotional outcomes. The experimental evidence shows parents value school effectiveness even conditional on peer quality and that social interactions strongly influence school choice.

Do Elite Universities Overpay Their Faculty?

This paper measures the relation between faculty salaries (net of faculty quality) and university or college prestige. The authors find no evidence that more prestigious institutions pay premiums above the competitive salary for the quality of the faculty they hire. Indeed, using an AKM (Abowd et al., 1999) model, The authors find little evidence of any institution effect on salaries, although salaries are higher in urban areas. The absence of institution effects in the AKM model is striking. It implies that, aside from random factors, faculty would receive the same salary at any university. The authors authors find it implausible that Oakland University would be willing to match the salaries Stanford pays its tenure-stream faculty. 

The authors draw on the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), a panel survey of individuals with U.S. doctorates in fields covered by the National Science Foundation. Thus,the results apply to STEM and the social sciences but not necessarily to the humanities or faculty with professional degrees. The authors merge the SDR with IPEDS institutional data and rankings of colleges and universities. The authors begin by applying a standard AKM model. The variance of the institution fixed effects is as little as .007, depending on the correction, and even lower if te authors apply the Kline et al. (2020) leave-one-out correction to the narrower connected set their approach requires. 

When the authors regress the estimated fixed effects on institution characteristics, the effect of university or college prestige is always small and generally insignificant. The authors find some evidence that institutions with larger endowments per student pay a modest premium. The authors repeat the exercise, replacing the two-step estimation with a single step that includes institution characteristics rather than institution fixed effects. The results are similar, as expected since both approaches provide consistent estimates of the same parameters. 

The authors also examine the correlation between institution prestige (measured by rank) and faculty quality, as measured by the individual fixed effect. The correlation is positive, consistent with our expectations (and probably those of most faculty at research universities). The authors briefly discuss how to reconcile the absence of a prestige premium, the positive match between prestige and faculty quality, and our sense that faculty at prestigious institutions would earn less at less prestigious institutions. The authors develop a toy hedonic model in which faculty transition only among similarly ranked institutions. 

The authors conclude with some thoughts about why our results differ from AKM models of the broad labor market. 

The Unintended Consequences of Merit-based Teacher Selection

 Teacher quality is a key factor in improving student academic achievement. As such, educational policymakers strive to design systems to hire the most effective teachers. This paper examines the effects of a national policy reform in Colombia that established a merit-based teacher-hiring system intended to enhance teacher quality and improve student learning. Implemented in 2005 for all public schools, the policy ties teacher-hiring decisions to candidates’ performance on an exam evaluating subject-specific knowledge and teaching aptitude. 

The implementation of the policy led to many experienced contract teachers being replaced by high exam-performing novice teachers.Although the policy sharply increased pre-college test scores of teachers, it also decreased the overall stock of teacher experience and led to sharp decreases in students’ exam performance and educational attainment. The hiring reform decreased students’ performance on high school exit exams by 8 percent of a standard deviation, and reduced the likelihood that students enroll in and graduate from college by more than 10 percent. 

The results underscore that relying exclusively on specific ex ante measures of teacher quality to screen candidates, particularly at the expense of teacher experience, may unintentionally reduce students’ learning gains.

Anti-bullying, sexual harassment resources increase in US schools but gaps remain

 

While violence prevention education has increased in U.S. schools, only 1 in 10 schools today require violence prevention discussions in class, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2024 National Conference & Exhibition at the Orange County Convention Center.

Chloe Gao, MD/PhD Candidate and lead research author on “Implementation of Educational Programming and Policies to Prevent Bullying, Sexual Harassment, and Violence in US Schools, 2008-2020,” studied data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from principals and health education teachers regarding efforts their schools made to prevent bullying, sexual harassment and violence.

“Bullying, sexual harassment, and violence can create hostile school environments that negatively impact students’ academic performance, health, and developmental outcomes,” Gao said. “Some students drop out of school in order to avoid these situations, a choice that impacts them for the rest of their lives.”

Two in 3 schools in the U.S. reported at least one violent incident from 2021-2022.

A total of 2,718 schools were included in the data where Gao found 2 out of 5 schools didn’t provide families with information on bullying and sexual harassment. Data further showed that the availability of anti-bullying and sexual harassment educational materials remained low, ranging from 56.2% in 2008 to 61.4% in 2020.

With children spending most of their time in school, the setting provides a unique chance for anti-bullying and harassment education. Despite this, Gao said gaps linger as program quality and availability varies from state to state.

Teen girls were particularly impacted with data showing the percentage of teen girls reporting sexual violence increased from 15% in 2017 to 18% in 2021.

Gao said the need is urgent for improved anti-bullying and sexual harassment measures, stating schools should be looking into how to best improve policies already in place and implementing them across the board. 

“School is supposed to be a safe place for all. A place children can learn, grow, and play no matter what circumstance they come from,” Gao said. “We need to make sure that we are engaging schools in the fight against youth bullying, sexual harassment, and violence.”

Sex differences in reading and science as academic strengths in gender-equal countries

A new study reveals that sex differences in academic strengths are found throughout the world and girls’ relative advantage in reading and boys’ in science is largest in gender-equal countries. 

Gender equality often draws attention especially in fields where women are underrepresented, such as high-status, high-paying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) careers. Academic strengths, or a student’s best subject, strongly influence their field of study. Students with strengths in mathematics or science gravitate toward STEM fields, while those with a strength in reading gravitate toward other fields (e.g., journalism). 

The research team analysed data from nearly 2.5 million adolescents in 85 countries over 12 years or in five waves (2006-2018) from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Their findings confirmed that girls’ strength is typically reading, while boys’ is typically mathematics or science. These patterns are found both across countries and time. 

Most notably, sex differences in reading and science as academic strengths are more pronounced in countries with greater gender equality, such as Finland. Sex differences in mathematics, on the other hand, remained stable regardless of country-level gender equality.

"These results suggest that in more gender-equal societies, women may be choosing fields other than STEM based on their strength in reading. Increasing the share of women in STEM will require more than just boosting girls' math and science skills or advancing gender equality," says Doctoral Researcher Marco Balducci from the INVEST Research Flagship at the University of Turku, Finland.

The finding that sex differences in academic strength in reading and science are larger in gender-equal Scandinavian countries than in more traditional Middle Eastern countries –known as the Gender Equality Paradox – challenges the popular belief that sex differences are mainly driven by socialisation pressure. 

"The common assumption is that as gender equality improves, traditional gender roles should fade, leading to smaller sex differences. But that is not what we found. Instead, our results align with recent research showing that sex differences either stay the same or even increase with more gender equality," says Balducci.

Professor David Geary from the University of Missouri notes that “Gender-equal, wealthy, and liberal countries offer more opportunities and allow greater freedom of choice. In these contexts, men and women make different decisions, leading to larger sex differences in various areas of life, including STEM fields.”

The research team encourages policymakers to prioritise mentorship opportunities for talented girls, as these may increase their likelihood of enrolling in a STEM degree programme. However,  Balducci adds that “our study highlights that achieving parity between boys and girls could be challenging as broader factors, like sex differences in academic strengths, play a key role in determining sex disparities in STEM."

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Journal

Psychological Science

DOI

10.1177/09567976241271330 

Median earnings, costs, and debt across different types of graduate degrees in different fields

 

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has released Graduate Degrees: Risky and Unequal Paths to the Top, which examines median earnings, costs, and debt across different types of graduate degrees in different fields of study, along with equity gaps in graduate degree attainment and earnings outcomes by race/ethnicity and gender. The report, supported by Arnold Ventures, also proposes improvements to transparency and accountability in graduate education through a new regulatory framework for Grad PLUS loan eligibility that builds upon the US Department of Education’s 2023 Gainful Employment (GE) and Financial Value Transparency (FVT) Regulations. Higher earnings, lower unemployment rates, career advancement, and a genuine curiosity for learning all drive interest in graduate education, but high costs and rising student debt levels undermine the perceived value of graduate degrees. While the economy of the future will increasingly require professionals with advanced degrees, graduate costs have increased 233 percent since 2000. The current trajectories of cost and debt put graduate education out of reach for too many students. Graduate students have two federal loan financing options: Direct Unsubsidized Stafford loans and Grad PLUS loans. Grad PLUS loans broaden access to graduate education and provide financing options with more protections than the private loan market. But they can also be a source of excessive debt—limited only by the cost of attendance, an amount that universities set with few incentives to rein in costs.

 

Florida policies: Culture of fear, censorship, and loss of learning opportunities

 

A new study finds that “education restriction” policies reduce opportunities and support offered in public schools, even without parents’ knowledge

How can a teacher discuss Jim Crow laws without breaking state law? Should a librarian stop ordering books with LGBTQ+ characters? A new white paper by UC San Diego and NYU researchers reveals the experiences of K-12 educators and parents in Florida grappling with state policies and policy effects restricting access to instruction, books, courses, clubs, professional development, and basic student supports.

Since 2021, Florida has enacted a series of state laws and policies restricting instruction related to race, sexual orientation, and gender identity; targeting student supports, such as pronoun use; expanding review of materials for prohibited content; and actively inviting public challenges to limit educational material on broad bases, including for “age appropriateness” and inclusion of any “sexual conduct.” Thousands of books have been taken from students for vetting and in some cases, permanent removal, including classic works of literature.

“Our data show state policies driving what we call a limitation effect—a cascade of pressures reaching down from the state, to the districts, to educators’ daily interactions with students that limit basic functions of education,” says Mica Pollock, professor of education studies at UC San Diego. “Data showed time use, energy, and money in K-12 systems becoming organized around restricting access to ideas, information, and supports for students in public schools, versus expanding education opportunity for all – often to placate the most restriction-oriented members of government or communities.”

Pollock and her co-author, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, professor of applied psychology at NYU Steinhardt, analyzed the UC San Diego team’s qualitative surveys and interviews of a total of 86 respondents, most of whom were educators and parents, in fall and winter 2023-2024. Both teams also conducted a supplemental review of public and media documents.

Their findings are published in The Limitation Effect: Experiences of State Policy-Driven Education Restriction in Florida’s Public Schools.

Almost every respondent had witnessed an effort at education restriction in their school or district, in one of the following topics: sexual orientation; gender identity; race; critical race theory; diversity, equity, and inclusion; culturally responsive education; African American history; and ethnic studies. More than half reported all eight types of restriction efforts occurring locally, and three-quarters reported at least five types occurring locally.

“To avoid punishment, including the threat of losing their jobs, K-12 system actors were withdrawing core elements that could benefit students across the education system,” says Yoshikawa. “These included books, discussions of race in curriculum and instruction, school messaging of support for LGBTQ students, Gender-Sexuality Alliance clubs, teacher-student support relationships, and also professional development designed to support students more effectively.”

Respondents described K-12 system actors reacting to single state policies and state policies combined, including broad vetting for “inappropriate” materials. Data showed myriad examples of reduced learning and professional opportunities, like the following:

• As required and pressured vetting expanded, teachers boxed up or stopped using entire classroom libraries to avoid punishment.
• Teachers avoided books with any content on “LGBTQ+” and “racism” with concerns that they might be unauthorized.

• Some students lost online access to public libraries and online book collections via their schools.

• Teachers decided not to discuss aspects of US racial history in class.
• Signs or markers denoting safe spaces for LGBTQ+ populations were removed.

• LGBTQ+ supportive clubs were cancelled, or attendance was chilled.

• All students in systems were denied access to a pilot of AP African American Studies; some were also denied AP Psychology.
• Professional development on supporting students with disabilities was limited given restrictions on discussing “bias.”
• Many parents were unaware of the restrictive efforts happening in their children’s schools and classrooms.

“As seen in these data, K-12 system actors pressured by specific and multiple state policies were reducing education opportunity both to sub-groups of students and to all students, an outcome we call collective harm,” says Pollock. “Some educators were spending paid employee time seeking different lessons that did not mention ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Already-purchased books went unused or were discarded; some districts spent hundreds of thousands of public dollars re-reviewing and removing books.”

​​“The likely effects on students include the loss of learning and well-being that accompanies rich and diverse materials and comprehensive dialogue about our society and its diversity. Additionally, shared civic life can suffer when students fail to build skills for analyzing our nation, or lack opportunities to understand and value their peers’ identity,” says Yoshikawa. “With the cumulative impact of these policies on top of existing stressors, many educators and even parents reported wanting to leave Florida or public education entirely.”

"Our study offers troubling examples to spark further inquiry, and it sounds the alarm about how K-12 system actors pressured by state restriction policy can reduce education opportunity, both to sub-groups of students and in education systems writ large,” says Pollock. “We believe that the opportunities shown restricted in this study should worry any American across political lines.”

Colleges barred from throwing money at student-athletes offering them multimillion-dollar coaches

 

 

image: 

Head football coach salaries at top NCAA colleges have shot upward in recent years, and WVU economists say that’s about more than rising revenues from college athletics. Their research shows colleges are paying big money for top coaches who can serve as recruiting tools to draw the best student-athletes.

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Credit: WVU Photo/Lindsay Cook

West Virginia University research has revealed college football coaches’ paychecks influence the quality of the players they’re able to recruit.

“College football coach salaries at big-time programs have increased substantially in recent years,” said Brad Humphreys, professor of economics at the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics. “We showed one reason for the increase is that colleges can recruit better athletes when they can offer them great coaches — and great coaches command higher salaries.”

Humphreys and professor Jane Ruseski published their results in the journal Applied Economics.

“For decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, hasn’t allowed colleges or universities to compete for student-athletes on a price basis,” Humphreys explained. “Instead, the NCAA limited athletes’ compensation to the cost of attending college and schools began competing to attract players in non-monetary ways.

“That could mean lavish practice facilities or larger stadiums, or it could mean higher-quality coaches. Our work is the first to show that this non-price-based competition for athletes happened in an industry where no such competition was thought to exist.”

The 2021 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston allowed student-athletes to begin to profit from opportunities like brand endorsements, but the NCAA still largely restricts colleges to offering players scholarships that cover tuition, room, board and other costs of higher education. Big-time NCAA football and basketball programs bring in major revenues that, since they can’t go toward player compensation, pay the salaries of coaches and administrators.

“High-quality college coaches are better at developing athletes for post-college professional careers,” Humphreys said. “They generate wins, so athletes who play for high-quality coaches get to experience more victories, more championships. We found the bigger a head coach’s salary, the higher that coach’s quality and profile, and the more successful their team’s recruitment efforts.”

Humphreys and Ruseski estimated the effect of head coach salaries on recruiting success for 90 NCAA Division I-A football schools between 2006 and 2015. They used data including player rankings from 247Sports, which measures the quality of different schools’ recruiting classes.

The average score awarded to a recruiting class by 247Sports over the 2006 to 2015 seasons was 172. The researchers discovered that for every $1 million bump in the salary of the head coach, the quality score of the incoming recruiting class jumped by an average of 77 points.

“This is consistent with the presence of an arms race in intercollegiate athletics,” Humphreys said. “In an arms race, firms race to outdo each other not through price wars, but through strategies like facilities, equipment, product quality, customer service, personnel. Now NCAA institutions are engaged in an athletics arms race in the form of escalating coaches’ salaries and multimillion-dollar investments in facilities — a rational response to NCAA regulations that limit compensation to athletes.”

The study showed the average head football coach earned $1.8 million per season, with top earner Nick Saban bringing in more than $7.4 million in 2015 at the University of Alabama. But salaries veered sharply upward over the course of the study, Humphreys emphasized. 

In 2006, the average head football coach in the sample earned about 14 times more than the average full-time faculty member. By 2015, the coach earned more than 26 times the faculty member’s salary.

Humphreys said he believes that steep rise in coach compensation can’t be adequately explained by the “rising tide” of revenues earned by college football teams.

“Our results imply the increase in head football coach salaries represents strategic interaction among athletic departments as they compete for high-quality coaches. When one school gives a head coach a raise, competing schools will follow, creating an upward spiral in salaries. There are policy implications there, given that the head football coach at a state’s flagship public university is often the state’s highest-paid public employee.”

He said, “Some advocates of reform want Congress to enable college sports to put a salary cap on head coach compensation, but that may not be necessary after the decision in NCAA v. Alston. We’ll need to see how institutions adjust to an environment where athlete compensation beyond NCAA regulations is possible.”

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Journal

Applied Economics

DOI

10.1080/00036846.2024.2399812 

School counseling SEL interventions results

 The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of school counselor-led social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions, including an exploration of the moderators that could influence variations in these effect sizes. Drawing from 28 published articles over the last 20 years in school counseling-affiliated academic journals, results indicated that school counseling SEL interventions result in a small to moderate significant mean effect size (Hedges's g = 0.308). While the moderator analyses did not yield statistically significant results, the different magnitudes of the effect sizes across the subgroups based on these moderators have implications for school counseling practice, research, and policymaking.

Perry Preschool at 50: What Lessons Should Be Drawn

 The Perry Preschool Project, the longest-running experimental study of an early childhood education program, demonstrates how such interventions can yield long-term personal, societal, and intergenerational benefits for disadvantaged populations. The evidence is clear: investments in high-quality early childhood education and parental engagement can deliver returns even 50 years later. The program’s findings remain scientifically robust, particularly when analyzed through rigorous small-sample inference methods. The program’s findings also contradict common criticisms of preschool, as, when measured correctly, treatment effects on IQ do not fadeout. 

This paper draws insights from both the original founders and recent empirical studies, emphasizing the critical role of parental involvement in early education. The authors advocate for a scientific agenda focused on understanding the mechanisms behind treatment effects, rather than replicating specific programs. The analysis also underscores the broader implications of early childhood interventions for social mobility and human capital formation. 

Analysts of early childhood education should recognize that although credentials and formal curricula contribute to successful programs, the true measure of quality lies in adult-child interactions, which play an essential role.

Secondary US history teachers: no indoctrination, politicization, or deliberate classroom malpractice.

 Full report

The American Historical Association has published American Lesson Plan: Teaching US History in Secondary Schools, a groundbreaking journey through curriculum mandates and classroom practices in our nation’s public schools. The report draws on the most comprehensive study of secondary US history education undertaken in the 21st century. AHA researchers appraised standards and legislation in all 50 states, conducted a survey of over 3,000 middle and high school US history educators, interviewed over 200 teachers and administrators, and reviewed thousands of pages of instructional materials from small towns to sprawling suburbs to big cities. A key takeaway: the AHA did not find indoctrination, politicization, or classroom malpractice.

Since 2020, a contentious debate over history education has generated outrage, wild claims, and a growing sense of alarm in homes and communities across the country. State legislators, school board members, pundits, and parents have proposed a dizzying array of potential solutions even as few seem to agree on either the root cause or the nature of purported crises in public schools. Overheated rhetoric threatens the professional integrity of teachers and exacerbates partisan polarization. The loudest voices frequently focus on what they believe students learn in the classroom, and at least 20 states have enacted legislation or taken executive action imposing restrictions on the content of history instruction.

This political theater and vigorous debate lack an important element: evidence drawn from careful research. While scholars and journalists issue periodic reviews of textbooks and state standards, no research team had attempted a thorough analysis of the full picture—the what, how, and why of middle and high school US history instruction.

In 2022, the American Historical Association (AHA) launched the most comprehensive study of the national US history teaching landscape undertaken in the 21st century. We wanted to know what is actually happening in public school classrooms across the country. Are teachers distorting history or indoctrinating children? Careful research transcends the heat and noise surrounding history instruction and enables us to provide a helpful and reliable source of information to parents, administrators, legislators, journalists, historians, and the many other stakeholders invested in the future of public education.

American Lesson Plan distills insights gathered during a two-year exploration of secondary history education, combining a 50-state appraisal of standards and legislation with a close examination of local contexts in nine states. We commissioned a survey from NORC at the University of Chicago of over 3,000 middle and high school US history educators, conducted long-form interviews with over 200 teachers and administrators, and collected thousands of pages of instructional materials from small towns to sprawling suburbs to big cities. The US education system—diverse, devolved, and divided—could never be captured by the blunt slogans that have dominated sensationalist media and drawn attention from even more careful observers.

What did we learn?

1. Secondary US history teachers are professionals who are concerned mostly with helping their students learn central elements of our nation’s history. Teachers want students to read and understand founding documents to prepare them for informed civic engagement. They also want students to grapple with the complex history and legacies of racism and slavery. These goals are entirely compatible. We did not find indoctrination, politicization, or deliberate classroom malpractice.

2. Teachers make important curricular decisions with direct influence over what students are expected to learn. Despite legislative interference, the localized influence of state-mandated assessment, and efforts to standardize instruction, history teachers retain substantial discretion over what they use in their daily work.

3. Free online resources outweigh traditional textbooks, which are unlikely to stand at the center of history instruction. While publishers pitch digital licenses and tech tools to districts, teachers instead make prolific use of a decentralized universe of no-cost or low-cost online resources. US history teachers rely on a short list of trusted sites led by federal institutions including the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and Smithsonian museums.

Reported Teacher Use and Avoidance of Selected Educational Resources

Response data from the survey question (n = 2,278): “How often have you used the free teaching resources listed below?” Other possible responses include “never heard of this,” “heard of this but have never used,” and “not sure I’ve heard of this.”

 

4. Room for improvement remains. A lack of resources, instructional time, and professional respect are among the clearest threats to the integrity of history education across the United States. Many of the teachers in our sample wished for more time and opportunity for professional learning focused on historical content—in essence, what happened, how, and why. If there is any wholly inaccurate message being sent by our public schools to millions of students and their families, it is that history is not important enough to command time, attention, and public resources.

Speculation and outrage do little to address the many challenges our schools confront on a daily basis. American Lesson Plan provides a solid evidentiary foundation for policies directed toward teaching history with the professional integrity and qualifications that help students grow into informed participants in a vibrant democracy. It is time to get serious about history education.

James Grossman, AHA executive director, said, “This report establishes a factual basis for the debate over history education that has attracted attention from state legislators, school boards, parents, and media across the country. Perhaps too much attention, as there has been—until now—far more heat than light. Our goal is to provide empirical evidence and rigorous analysis to inform current debates over how history is taught in our schools.”

Daily homework of up to 15 minutes most effective fo student achievement in math and science

 

· Daily homework of up to 15 minutes most effective for math achievement

· Homework assigned three to four times a week benefits science performance

· Short duration homework just as effective as longer assignments

Researchers at Maynooth University’s Hamilton Institute and Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Ireland have unveiled significant findings on the role of homework in student achievement. The research, led by Prof Andrew Parnell, Nathan McJames and Prof Ann O’Shea, used a new AI model to analyse data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2019).

Focusing on 4,118 Irish students in their second year of secondary school, the research assessed the impact of varying homework patterns on their mathematics and science performance.

The study titled, ‘Little and Often: Causal Inference Machine Learning Demonstrates the Benefits of Homework for Improving Achievement in Mathematics and Science’ was published in the journal Learning & Instruction.

It offers new evidence on how homework frequency and duration affect academic performance among Irish secondary school students.

Key Findings:

Frequency Over Duration: The study highlights that the frequency of homework is more important than its duration. Daily homework assignments were found to be most effective for improving mathematics achievement, while science performance benefitted most from homework assigned three to four times a week.

Effectiveness of Shorter Assignments: Short-duration homework tasks, lasting up to 15 minutes, were shown to be just as effective as longer assignments. This suggests that regular, concise homework can promote learning without overwhelming students with excessive work.

Equity in Benefits: Contrary to previous research, this study found that all students, regardless of socioeconomic background, experienced similar benefits from homework, indicating equitable advantages across diverse student populations. The researchers advocate for homework policies prioritising regular, short-duration assignments to optimise student engagement and academic success without causing undue stress.

Nathan McJames, the lead author, commented: “Our study provides strong evidence that regular homework can significantly enhance student performance, especially when given ‘little and often’. By avoiding very long homework assignments, this also allows students to balance schoolwork with other important activities outside of school.”

Prof Andrew Parnell added: “Our use of advanced causal inference methods ensures the reliability of our findings. This research provides valuable insights that can guide evidence-based policy changes in education, ultimately benefitting students across the board.”

Enrollment of undocumented students at California universities

 dropped from 2016 to 2023

Enrollment of low-income, undocumented students declined by half at University of California and California State University campuses from 2016 through the 2022-23 academic year, according to a new study by the University of California Civil Rights Project at UCLA and UC Davis School of Law. 

The paper, “‘California Dreamin’: DACA’s Decline and Undocumented College Student Enrollment in the Golden State” is believed to be the first to report on data collected during an era marked by increasing limitations on DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. 

Further, researchers found, for UC and CSU low-income undocumented students overall (new and continuing students) there was a 30% decline between 2018-19 and 2022-23. This reflects a delayed impact as earlier large cohorts took time to graduate.

Given existing state laws intended to provide equal access for undocumented students who grew up in California, the authors attribute the stark declines to the gradual constrictions on DACA since 2017, which worsened after a Texas federal district court’s national injunction in 2021 blocking the processing of new DACA applications, researchers said. Restrictions make it more difficult for Gen Z undocumented college students to obtain legal employment and other benefits that make college more accessible and affordable, researchers said.

The study, authored by William C. Kidder, research associate at the UCLA Civil Rights Project, and Kevin R. Johnson, professor and former dean, UC Davis School of Law, is forthcoming in the Journal of College & University Law. 

“As a researcher and as an administrator who has worked in both the UC and CSU, what surprised me was just how consistent the findings were across the two university systems,” said Kidder, referring to new Dream Act enrollment declines of 51% at UC and 48% at CSU since 2016-17 and other key findings. “I believe that underscores how common it is for young Gen Z undocumented college students to struggle when DACA is beyond reach and when they are excluded from campus jobs and surrounding labor markets.”

The study compared low-income undocumented students with low- and lower-middle income students at UC and CSU with similar academic profiles. The absence of declines among these control groups highlights the unique challenges faced by undocumented students today. It also supports the authors’ conclusion that the stifling of DACA plays a major role in explaining why undocumented college students are having such a difficult time pursuing the dream of a university education, the authors said.

“The study serves as a reminder that action is needed to address the fading away of DACA, which benefited so many young noncitizens,” said Johnson. “Hopefully, Congress and the president in the future work to address the issues.” 

The California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 2586, known as the Opportunity for All Act, which would prevent the UC, CSU and California Community Colleges from disqualifying students from applying for campus employment due to their failure to provide proof of federal work authorization. The bill was sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month.

“California is as an upper-bound test case with the strongest, longest and arguably most robust set of state laws and university-level aid policies to support undocumented college students including in the realm of financial aid,” the authors wrote. 

Even so, given the gradual demise of DACA for recent cohorts of young Gen Z undocumented students hoping for access to quality higher education opportunities, the data show those opportunities are declining, the authors said.  

Lasting effects of pretend play in early childhood

 

From developing social skills to fostering creativity, pretend play in young children is likened to being a “metaphoric multivitamin” in an editorial published in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews by Florida Atlantic University’s David F. Bjorklund, Ph.D.

As the school year kicks into full gear, Bjorklund, associate chair and professor in the Department of Psychology within FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, highlights the plethora of robust benefits of pretend play on cognitive, social and emotional development in children and cautions how “learning through play” has changed with the demands of contemporary society.

Given natural selection’s shaping of childhood for the acquisition and refinement of species-adapted social-cognitive skills – much through pretend play – Bjorklund says it is unfortunate that modern culture is ignoring the evolved wisdom of how best to educate young children.

“Throughout our species’ history and prehistory, and in hunter-gatherer and traditional cultures today, young children acquired important cultural knowledge and skills through play and observation, with much adult behaviors being imitated during play,” said Bjorklund. “Pretend play is associated with a host of enhanced cognitive abilities such as executive function, language and perspective taking, which are important to education, making the minimization of pretend play unwise.”

He explains that direct teaching of children by adults is rare in traditional cultures, and likely was for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. However, with the advent of increasingly complex technologies such as reading and mathematics and the need for universal education, formal schooling became necessary, and this has recently extended to early childhood.

“The prevalence of preschool education has increased over the decades in many developed countries, and unlike earlier days when ‘learning through play’ described the basic curriculum, contemporary preschool education instead often emphasizes direct instruction, characteristic of pedagogy designed for older children,” said Bjorklund. “This reflects an evolutionary mismatch between young children’s evolved learning abilities and the demands of contemporary society.”

Pretend play occurs voluntarily and spontaneously, especially when the individual is relaxed and not under stress and typically lacks any immediate practical purpose.   

“In the context of pretend play, skills encompass imagination, the ability to think about possibilities that differ from reality, mental time travel, and imitation, among other symbolic capabilities,” said Bjorklund.

He explains that pretend play functions as an experience-expectant process, enhancing the brain’s readiness for focused learning.

“It’s not clear whether the extended period of childhood and juvenile development created more opportunities for play or if this playfulness emerged as a result of that extended period,” said Bjorklund. “However, this evolution of childhood, along with the prolonged neural plasticity it brings, may have been a crucial adaptation for the development of the modern human mind.”

He says pretend play likely plays a crucial role in developing and refining psychological skills rather than being solely necessary for their emergence.

“Advanced pretend play is most evident during the extended juvenile stage in humans,” said Bjorklund. “This extension has led to a distinct childhood stage, lasting until about age 7, characterized by greater independence and social interaction.”

During this time, children engage in more complex play while their cognitive abilities continue to develop. Bjorklund emphasizes that this prolonged juvenile period and its neural plasticity are essential for fostering our unique social-cognitive skills.

Research comparing play-based preschool curricula to those focused on direct instruction has consistently shown that while direct instruction may yield immediate benefits, play-based approaches offer more significant long-term advantages in both academic performance and students’ attitudes toward school.

“One of the most comprehensive studies on the long-term effects of direct instruction for preschoolers from low-income backgrounds found that although there were initial academic gains, these benefits diminished over time,” said Bjorklund. “By third grade, children in the control group outperformed those in the direct-instruction program, and this gap widened by sixth grade.”

These findings led the researchers to reevaluate the effectiveness of heavily drilling children on basic skills and to consider the potential benefits of play-oriented preschool programs, particularly for children at risk of intellectual challenges.

Bjorklund says recess and opportunities for free play for older school-aged children also have been declining in developed countries, sometimes replaced by adult-directed play, again at odds with what is known about children’s evolved learning abilities.

“These practices may not only make learning more arduous, but negatively impact children’s sense of autonomy with respect to learning,” said Bjorklund. “Pretend play evolved to enhance children’s acquisition and refinement of important cultural knowledge and skills during an extended juvenile period. The abilities needed by modern children have changed and may require new means of learning, but we should not lose sight of the substantial benefits that pretend play can still afford our species’ youngest members.”

Finger counting may help improve math skills in kindergarten

Preschool teachers have different views on finger counting. Some teachers consider finger counting use in children to signal that they are struggling with math, while others associate its use as advanced numerical knowledge. In a new Child Development study, researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and Lea.fr, Editions Nathan in Paris, France, explored whether a finger counting strategy can help kindergarten-aged children solve arithmetic problems. 

Adults rarely use their fingers to calculate a small sum (e.g., 3+2) as such behaviors could be attributed to pathological difficulties in mathematics or cognitive impairments. However, young children between the ages of four and six who use their fingers to solve such problems are recognized as intelligent, probably because they have already reached the level of abstraction allowing them to understand that a quantity can be represented by different means. It is only from the age of eight that using finger counting to solve very simple problems can indicate math difficulties.

The current study aimed to determine whether children who do not count on their fingers can be trained to do so and whether this training would result in enhanced arithmetic performance. The study focused on 328 five and six-year-old kindergarteners (mainly White European living in France) and tested their abilities to solve simple addition problems. Participating children were recruited through their teachers who voluntarily took part in the experiment. Teachers were required to register through a digital pedagogical and collaborative network, Lea.fr which was used to provide them with the materials and procedure details to implement the intervention program in their classrooms. The study included a pre-test, a training held over two weeks, a post-test closely after the training's end, and a delayed post-test. 

The results show an important increase in performance between pre- and post-test for the trained children who did not count on their fingers originally (from 37% to 77% of correct responses) compared to non-finger users in the control group (from 40% to 48%). These results were replicated in an experiment with an active control group instead of a passive control group. This is the first study to show that children's performance in arithmetic can be improved through explicit teaching of a finger counting strategy.

Researchers suggest that since children who use their fingers to help solve math problems outperform those who do not, teaching a finger counting strategy could help reduce inequity among children in mathematics. However, whether children who use finger counting are using it as an arithmetic procedure or understand something deeper about numbers will still need to be determined with future research. 

The Society for Research in Child Development had the opportunity to discuss this research with Dr. Catherine Thevenot from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Lausanne.

SRCD: What led you to study finger counting in kindergartners?  

Dr. Thevenot: The idea originated from conversations with primary school teachers. They often asked me whether they should encourage or discourage children from using their fingers to solve calculations. Surprisingly, the existing research didn’t offer a clear answer, which left teachers understandably frustrated with my frequent response of “I don’t know.” This recurring question, coupled with the lack of concrete evidence, inspired me to investigate the issue myself. The best way to provide a meaningful answer was through experimental studies—so that’s exactly what I set out to do.

SRCD: How can these findings be useful for teachers, practitioners and caregivers?

Dr. Thevenot: Our findings are highly valuable because, for the first time, we provide a concrete answer to the long-standing question of whether teachers should explicitly teach children to use their fingers for solving addition problems—especially those who don’t do so naturally. The answer is yes. Our study demonstrates that finger calculation training is effective for over 75% of kindergartners. The next step is to explore how we can support the remaining 25% of children who didn’t respond as well to the intervention. 

SRCD: Were you surprised by any of the findings? 

Dr. Thevenot: Absolutely. When I first saw the results, I was amazed by the huge improvement in performance among children who didn’t initially use their fingers to solve the problems. Before our intervention, these children were only able to solve about one-third of the addition problems at pre-test. After training, however, they were solving over three-quarters of them! The difference was striking, especially compared to the control groups, where gains were insignificant. The extent of this improvement truly exceeded my expectations. 

SRCD: What’s next in this field of research? 

Dr. Thevenot: An important question now is to determine whether what we taught to children goes beyond a mere procedure to solve the problems. In other words, we want to know whether our intervention led to a deeper conceptual understanding of numbers, specifically whether children better grasp how to manipulate the quantities represented by their fingers. In fact, we have already started addressing this question and the initial results are very promising. However, we still need to carry out additional experiments to confirm that these improvements are indeed a direct result of our training program.

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Schweizerischer Nationalfonds).

Summarized from an article in Child Development, “Finger counting training enhances addition performance in kindergarteners,” by Poletti, C., Krenger, M. (Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland),Létang, M., Hennequin, B. (Lea.fr, Editions Nathan, Paris, France) and Thevenot, C. (Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland), Copyright 2024 The Society for Research in Child Development. All rights reserved. 

1 in 5 parents worry their elementary and middle school aged kids don’t have friends

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Three in four parents have taken steps to help their child make new friends, national poll suggests.

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Credit: Sara Schultz, University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health

 Developing friendships is often seen as a natural part of childhood but it may be easier for some kids than others.

And many parents worry about their children’s friendships, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, with one in five saying their child ages six to 12 has no friends or not enough friends.

Ninety percent of parents believe their child would like to make new friends.

“Friendships can play a significant role in children’s overall health and development, emotional well-being, self-esteem and social skills,” said Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark, M.P.H.

“But some parents say their children face barriers in making friends, such as personality, social anxiety, medical conditions or just not having as many opportunities.”

Over half of parents report at least one factor that makes it difficult for their child to make new friends, with about one in five saying that shyness or being socially awkward got in the way of their child’s efforts to make new friends.

Another 15% of parents say friendship challenges stemmed from kids being mean while less than 10% said a child’s disability or medical condition made friendships more challenging.

Parents of older children were more likely than parents of younger children to say that difficulties making new friends are related to other kids already having friend groups or having too few places to get together.

The nationally representative report is based on responses from 1,031 parents of children 6-12 years old surveyed in August 2024.

Helping children navigate friendships

Three in four parents have taken steps to help their child make new friends.

The most common strategies include arranging play dates or outings, enrolling their child in activities to meet kids with similar interests or giving their child advice on how to make friends. About a fourth of parents try to befriend other parents who have kids the same age.

“Supporting children in making friends is a balance of guidance, encouragement, and giving them space to navigate social situations independently,” Clark said.

“Parents’ involvement may vary based on a child’s age, personality, and social needs.”

Children who struggle making new friends because of shyness, medical conditions or social anxiety, for example, may need to be gently eased into friend-making. Parents can help by choosing a small-group activity the child enjoys, Clark suggests, and allow space for the child to become comfortable interacting with peers.

“For some children, making new friends can be stressful,” Clark said. “Remember that children are still developing and practicing their social skills while making and maintaining friendships.

“Parents should expect and allow children to make mistakes, intervening only in matters of safety. Later, in a private moment with the child, parents should be ready to listen and offer advice.”

Parents of older children are also more likely to allow children to use social media connect with friends – including one in four parents of middle school-aged children – and buy items to help them “fit in.”

Clark cautions parents to be mindful of how their kids are using social media, which has been shown to increase the risk of developing mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression because of opportunities for negative peer influences.

“Parents who choose to allow social media should help their child learn to use it responsibly,” she said.

Parents want friends’ families to be like them

Over half of parents feel it’s very important that they know the parents of their child’s friends, while more than a quarter are very concerned about their child’s friends encouraging their child to do things parents don’t approve of.

But one of the most surprising findings from the poll, Clark says, was that two in three parents said it was important that their child’s friends come from families that were like theirs. Most commonly, this involved similar parenting styles.

More than a third of parents also indicated a preference for their child’s friends to come from families with a certain political or religious affiliation. Fewer said it was important that friends’ families had similar levels of education or income.

Clark cautions that keeping children's friendships exclusive to certain circles may prevent them from developing broader perspectives, open mindedness and better social skills.

“School is often viewed as a place where children will encounter and form connections with peers with different backgrounds, ideas, customs, and ways of thinking,” Clark said.

“Limiting a child’s friends to only those from similar backgrounds may hamper their ability and comfort in navigating diverse networks in the future.”