John B. Diamond, professor of sociology and education policy in Brown University’s department of sociology and Annenberg Institute for School Reform, has been selected by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) to present the 2022 Brown Lecture in Education Research. The public lecture will take place virtually on Thursday, November 3, 6:00–7:30 p.m. ET.

Diamond is a leading scholar in the study of race in education and how it shapes instruction and learning in U.S. schools and school systems. His research focuses on the relationship between social inequality and educational opportunity, examining how leadership, policies, and practices shape students' educational opportunities and outcomes. Diamond is an advisory board member of the American Sociological Association (ASA)’s Sociology Action Network and a national planning team member of the URBAN Research Network. He is an AERA Fellow and served as chair of the AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Selection Committee.

It's the largest chunk of federal money ever to hit Rhode Island schools: $645 million for elementary and secondary education, with $580 million going directly to local school districts.

"It really is a huge amount of money," said Professor Nate Schwartz at Brown University's Annenberg Institute.

Today, Results for America and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University released a new EdResearch for Recovery brief by James S. Kim and Zhongyu Wei (Harvard University) sharing evidence-based instructional strategies to improve reading outcomes for K-4 students.

Why It Matters: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results showed that grade 4 reading scores dropped from 2015 to 2019. During the pandemic, reading performance further declined, with particularly large drops for students in younger grades, students from historically marginalized groups, and students attending high-poverty schools.

Through a competitive submission process, Brown Vice President for Research Jill Pipher and a committee of faculty reviewers selected nine of 21 research proposals for awards ranging from $47,776 to $100,000.

“The selected projects identify pandemic challenges needing solutions,” Pipher said. “They look at its wide-ranging impact to our society, and we believe the projects will advance the national conversation about managing a pandemic in this country. I look forward to the knowledge gained and solutions developed as a result of these investigations.”

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Supporting Tutors Working with High-Need Students: The Impact of a Social-Emotional Learning Text Messaging Curriculum for Tutors. (Susanna Loeb and Carly Robinson, Annenberg Institute.)

The other approach pairs students with one tutor for multiple virtual sessions each week. It’s similar to the kind of “high-dosage” help that’s been shown to deliver strong results in person. 

The small handful of studies that have looked at virtual tutoring during the pandemic saw promising results from this variety. But offerings vary, so it’s tough to say how many students are getting that kind, said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education at Brown University who’s studying tutoring initiatives.

When students have a teacher for more than one year, they benefit academically and behaviorally, a new working paper shows.

The study, which was published this month by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, captures all instances of repeat student-teacher matches—a teacher who happens to move from 2nd to 4th grade, a high school math teacher who teaches multiple grade levels, and a teacher who “loops” with her same class for two years. But intentional looping is not very common, which the researchers say is an opportunity for schools as they work to meet students’ academic and social needs in the wake of the pandemic.

Kenneth Wong, an education scholar at Brown, will assess whether a longstanding music enrichment program in Pawtucket is helping to close opportunity and education achievement gaps for low-income students of color.

Could an after-school music enrichment program help close opportunity and achievement gaps among K-12 students in Rhode Island? An education scholar at Brown University is partnering with a local school district and orchestra to find out.

Paraprofessionals say the job has become more demanding in recent years, as school leaders rely on them to help cover staffing shortages that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. And as large shares of teachers warn in surveys that they’re likely to leave the classroom, district leaders are increasingly looking to paraprofessionals as a potential pool for future teachers. Nationally, the number of paraprofessionals has more than doubled over the past three decades—in 2018, there were about 825,000 paraeducators, compared to 3.2 million teachers.

Today, Results for America and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University released a new EdResearch for Recovery brief by Carolyn Heinrich (Vanderbilt University) sharing design principles for effective online credit recovery as a strategy to help student make up coursework missed during COVID-19.

Why It Matters: Schools have increasingly turned to online credit recovery to help students make up missed coursework. But research shows that even when students regain course credits, online credit recovery often leads to little substantive learning and negative long-term outcomes, including lower lifetime earnings. This brief provides specific, research-based principles for effective online credit recovery, including which students benefit most, how to group classes, and how to train instructors.

The recipient of the 2022 Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award is Dr. Matthew A. Kraft. Using a “multi-channel communications approach,” Dr. Kraft goes beyond traditional outlets for scholarly work to share research relevant to K-12 teachers and teaching. This includes topics such as teacher evaluation, teaching coaching and tutoring, the need to decrease classroom interruptions and the inequitable impact of teacher layoffs, all from the perspectives of research, policy and practice. Dr. Kraft incorporates use of social media, conversations with practitioners and service deliverers, op-eds and articles in the popular and education press as well as active partnerships with members of various stakeholder groups.