News

  • | Research Minutes

    A new policy brief, coauthored by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research‘s Elaine Allensworth and the Annenberg Institute‘s Nate Schwartz, offers some research-backed strategies for schools attempting to address student learning loss in the months ahead.

    Allensworth discusses the brief, the potential scope of learning loss, and a number of interventions and supports proven to accelerate learning for struggling students.

  • | Annenberg Institute

    “The COVID-19 pandemic has widened existing educational inequities, impacting students in significant ways. With students learning remotely or in hybrid formats, there is a heightened need for one-on-one instruction around specific topics or curriculum areas, but teachers’ resources are stretched thin. Online one-on-one tutoring is a powerful educational intervention that can support students’ academic, social and emotional needs. However, this resource is often available only to families who can afford to pay for it. By making free tutoring available to every K-12 student in participating schools, our program aims to level the playing field and lead to more positive outcomes for all students. We’re excited to partner with Tutor Matching Service in this endeavor to continue serving our local students, families and communities.” – Soljane Martinez, Ed.D., Education Coordinator, Annenberg Institute at Brown University

  • | Chalkbeat

    The tutoring is expected to be conducted both virtually and in person. It’s appealing to policymakers now because there is plenty of both supply (recent college graduates and others looking for work) and demand (students who lost learning). It’s also appealing because research really does back intensive tutoring as a way to help students make big learning gains, though notably, most studies look at in-person rather than virtual tutoring.

  • | The New York Times
    Some organizations are working to make one-on-one instruction available to kids for whom private tutoring might not be an option. Brown University in Providence, R.I., has begun piloting a program connecting undergraduate students with seniors at a nearby public high school for remote tutoring sessions; it will expand across the district this fall. “We really hope that it’s going to ease that burden, at least a little bit, for many families,” said Soljane Martinez, the education coordinator at the university’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
  • | American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

    What would schools need to do to stem learning losses experienced by students with disabilities? In a recent policy brief I co-authored with Sharon Vaughn and Lynn Fuchs, written as part of the EdResearch for Recovery series, we tried to answer this question. We reviewed the most rigorous evidence we could find from special education research, drawing on a series of meta-analyses and systematic reviews, as well as reviews conducted by the What Works Clearinghouse.

  • | Brown University

    As part of a pledge made after its groundbreaking 2006 report on the University’s historic ties to slavery, Brown University has fully funded a commitment to establish $10 million in endowed funds to support current and future generations of Pre-K-12 students in Providence.

    Brown’s governing board, the Corporation of Brown University, authorized this month the designation of $8.1 million in unrestricted University-endowed funds to complement $1.9 million raised over the years from donor support, achieving full funding for the Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence.

  • | Results for America

    Washington, DC - Today, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and Results for America released four new EdResearch for Recovery briefs from some of the country's leading researchers to help policymakers, educators, parents and others respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic:

  • | NBC News

    The average student will likely return to school having retained only 63 percent to 68 percent of learning gains in reading and as little as 37 percent to 50 percent of learning gains in math compared to a typical year, according to projections in a working paper from NWEA, a nonprofit organization formerly known as the Northwest Evaluation Association, and scholars at Brown University and the University of Virginia.

    The gap widens along racial and socioeconomic lines.

  • | The Christian Science Monitor
    Plus, those who need school to open the most might be the least inclined to send their children back. Much attention has been paid to inequalities faced by minorities during the pandemic, from being overrepresented in frontline work, victim tallies, and among children in poor education outcomes. Yet Carycruz Bueno, a postdoctoral research associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, says minority students might find a school setting too risky. For example, Black and Latino families are more likely to have intergenerational households with grandparents living under the same roof, she says, so those families will need to make collective decisions about whether a child returning to school in person is good for the health of the home.
  • | Data Quality Campaign

    Bringing research to the people. Nate Schwartz of Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform and Sara Kerr of Results for America are turning questions they’ve received from the field into productive, easy-to-read content. A new project called EdResearch for Recovery brings together experts from universities across the country to provide actionable, evidence-based insights to help guide decisionmaking. The public has questions about so many facets of education in recovery—and projects like this are a step toward finding solutions. The more data and evidence leaders can draw from, the better equipped they will be to make decisions that benefit students and keep everyone safe.