Report on the Condition of Education 2023. NCES 2023-144

The "Report on the Condition of Education" is a congressionally mandated annual report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Using the most recent data available (at the time this report was written) from NCES and other sources, the report contains key indicators on the condition of education in the United States at all levels, from prekindergarten through postsecondary, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. There are core indicators that are updated every year and spotlight indicators that provide in-depth analyses on topics of interest to education agencies, policymakers, researchers, and the public. At the broadest level, the Condition of Education Indicator System is organized into five sections: family characteristics;preprimary, elementary, and secondary education;postsecondary education;population characteristics and economic outcomes;and international comparisons. The Report on the "Condition of Education 2023" encompasses key findings from the Condition of Education Indicator System. The full contents of the Indicator System can be accessed online through the website or by downloading PDFs for the individual indicators. [For "The Condition of Education 2023": At a Glance, see ED628291. For the "Report on the Condition of Education 2022. NCES 2022-144," see ED619870.]

Homeschooling Black students during the pandemic

According to the US Census Bureau's biweekly Household Pulse Survey, the percentage of homeschoolers-children whose parents withdrew them from public or private schools and assumed full control of their education-grew significantly during the pandemic. The percentage of households that homeschooled at least one child increased from 5.4% at the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 to 19.5% in May of 2021. While homeschooling has long been associated with conservative, religious White families, the most significant increases during the pandemic have been among families of color and, in particular, Black households. Around 3% of Black students were homeschooled before the pandemic;by October 2020, the number had increased by more than five times-to 16%. What is driving the migration from mainstream education is difficult to parse, due in part to the dearth of research and reporting on homeschooling among families of color - both before the pandemic and as it continues to unfold. Although COVID-19 and concern for children's health and safety acted as the impetus for many, if not most, families' decisions, the shift from traditional schooling has also been driven by parents' concerns about the disparities, inadequacies, and racism that run deep in public education. The nation's ongoing reckoning with race alongside COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst for some parents of color to remove their children from mainstream education settings entirely. While do not yet know if new adopters of homeschooling will continue the practice post-pandemic or if they may delay their decision to re-enroll their children in brick-and-mortar schools, there are clear implications for students and the school districts they leave behind. This chapter explores the growth of homeschooling among Black families specifically, providing an overview and typologies, pre-pandemic trends and changes during COVID-19, a review of the literature on Black homeschooling, and concluding with implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The development of self-determination: A qualitative exploration of the Indiana choice scholarship program

The 1960s launched the school movement of choice. Today, school choice is nationally threaded through many states serving a diversity of students. Indiana developed and implemented the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (ICSP) policy in 2011 to align with these national initiatives to benefit students. The goal for Indiana was to ease the burden of private education costs for families regardless of a family's income, but not all challenges within implementation have been remedied. The historical evolution of school choice currently focuses on the effectiveness of these state policies with regard to transitioning from the public to the private school for learners. Undergirded by Self-Determination Theory, this study focuses on high school students who matriculated from public to private ICSP Catholic schools. Participants were interviewed about their experience in both school settings after using the ICSP for at least one full schoolyear. Participants reflected on their ability to make autonomous decisions, the importance of feeling connected to others, and their understanding of actions needed for career readiness. By implementing qualitative inquiry (Saldana, 2016), interviews explored perceptions about the ICSP, focusing on SDT. This approach aided in analyzing individual students' perceptions behind the reasons why they chose to leave the public schools and enroll in Indiana's Choice Scholarship Program. Qualitative inquiry allowed for a discussion about what had worked well, what had been a challenge, and what had helped ICSP students imagine college and career readiness after transferring schools. This design gave participants an opportunity to discuss choices regarding behaviors developing autonomy, relatedness to peers and mentors, and competence within academic programs and extracurriculars. Qualitative inquiry also discussed relevant topics that naturally evolved from conversations (Crotty, 2015) such as the COVID pandemic. The rationale for this selection was to explore how the ICSP had shaped a student's opportunities for overall student success and college and career readiness using the SDT as a platform. The focus of this study was to have a discussion to understand if students see any benefit to a voucher scholarship program to attend an ICSP school. Cross-referencing responses added depth and understanding to the findings. Families still find school choice in Indiana difficult to sustain. Students in the study noted the challenge of transitioning from the public to the private school climates, commitment expectations, and financial costs associated with transferring to an ICSP school. While families still continue to struggle, Indiana continues to evolve the program to serve as many students K-12 as possible. Regardless of personal tests, participants in this study were satisfied with their decisions to leave the public school to attend the ICSP school. They felt for their college and career success, the transition was necessary. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

A "process that never ends": Parents' experiences navigating a public preschool lottery

The current study examined how families navigated the rules and admissions requirements of Washington, DC's common enrollment lottery for public preschool.Informed by ethnography and case study methods, multiple in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with two Black mothers and one White mother over the course of a year to understand their processes for navigating the school lottery. Despite the lottery telling parents to rank schools in the order of their preference, informal rules were identified via lottery preferences and prior waitlist information. Race shapedparticipants' school search processes as well, with both Black mothers indicating concerns regarding how some schools would treat their children. While all three participants reviewed DC data on waitlists, school quality, and academic curriculum, they still relied heavily on information from other parents to get specific experiences about schools. Despite an abundance of research supporting the importance of early childhood education on later outcomes, the mothers in this study downplayed the importance of preschool, perhaps in response to the level of effort expended on the lottery process.Their focus for the most part was on the later elementary years and beyond. Quantitative data on school demographics, waitlists, and school ratings are also analyzed to show how school- and ward-level structural constraints informed mothers' processes. The study occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a unique opportunity to show how families adjusted to school decisions during this historic event. By the last interview-about one year after the study began-all three mothers were participating in the lottery again. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Evidence Based Funding in Illinois: A Discussion of Equity in Urban Education

In this pilot study, we examine the realities of differential funding structures across the US, which disproportionately disadvantage historically marginalized communities (Black and Brown students) and students living in poverty, contributing to an intractable opportunity gap. Prior research indicates that equitable funding can, in fact, decrease the opportunity gap between dominant and non-dominant-culture students. We use the new funding structure in Illinois as a case study in funding equity that should be applied nationally. We critique the current funding structure of public schools in general, which has defamed the public sector in favor of school choice, vouchers, and charter schools--all with less oversight than public schools and structured to profit from public monies. Finally, we address the impact of COVID19 on existing funding inequities.

Report on the Condition of Education 2022. NCES 2022-144

The "Report on the Condition of Education" is a congressionally mandated annual report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Using the most recent data available (at the time this report was written) from NCES and other sources, the report contains key indicators on the condition of education in the United States at all levels, from prekindergarten through postsecondary, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. There are core indicators that are updated every year and spotlight indicators that provide in-depth analyses on topics of interest to education systems, policymakers, researchers, and the public. At the broadest level, the Condition of Education Indicator System is organized into five sections: family characteristics, preprimary, elementary, and secondary education, postsecondary education, population characteristics and economic outcomes, and international comparisons. The "Report on the Condition of Education" 2022 encompasses key findings from the Condition of Education Indicator System. The Indicator System for 2022 presents 88 indicators, including the 23 indicators on crime and safety topics, and can be accessed online through the website or by downloading PDFs for the individual indicators. [For "'The Condition of Education 2022': At a Glance," see ED619873. For the "Report on the Condition of Education 2021. NCES 2021-144," see ED612942.]

Homeschooling Skyrocketed during the Pandemic, but What Does the Future Hold?

Homeschooling is generally understood to mean that a child's education takes place exclusively at home--but homeschooling is a continuum, not an all-or-nothing choice. In a sense, everyone is "home-schooled," and the ways that families combine learning at home with attending school are many. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of homeschooling has become ambiguous, as parents mix home, school, and online instruction, adjusting often to the twists and turns of school closures and public health concerns. Improving public understanding of the growing and changing nature of homeschooling was the purpose of a virtual conference hosted in spring 2021 by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School. The conference examined issues in homeschooling through multiple lenses, including research, expert analysis, and the experiences of parents. The event drew more than 2,000 registrants, many of them home-schooling parents. Their participation made clear that homeschoolers today constitute a diverse group of families with many different educational objectives, making it difficult to generalize about the practice. The conference did not uncover convincing evidence that homeschooling is preferable to public or private schools in terms of children's academic outcomes and social experiences, but neither did it find credible evidence that homeschooling is a worse option. Whether homeschooling does or does not deliver for families seems to depend on individual needs and the reasons that families adopt the practice.

Homeschooling Black students during the pandemic

According to the US Census Bureau's biweekly Household Pulse Survey, the percentage of homeschoolers-children whose parents withdrew them from public or private schools and assumed full control of their education-grew significantly during the pandemic. The percentage of households that homeschooled at least one child increased from 5.4% at the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 to 19.5% in May of 2021. While homeschooling has long been associated with conservative, religious White families, the most significant increases during the pandemic have been among families of color and, in particular, Black households. Around 3% of Black students were homeschooled before the pandemic;by October 2020, the number had increased by more than five times-to 16%. What is driving the migration from mainstream education is difficult to parse, due in part to the dearth of research and reporting on homeschooling among families of color - both before the pandemic and as it continues to unfold. Although COVID-19 and concern for children's health and safety acted as the impetus for many, if not most, families' decisions, the shift from traditional schooling has also been driven by parents' concerns about the disparities, inadequacies, and racism that run deep in public education. The nation's ongoing reckoning with race alongside COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst for some parents of color to remove their children from mainstream education settings entirely. While do not yet know if new adopters of homeschooling will continue the practice post-pandemic or if they may delay their decision to re-enroll their children in brick-and-mortar schools, there are clear implications for students and the school districts they leave behind. This chapter explores the growth of homeschooling among Black families specifically, providing an overview and typologies, pre-pandemic trends and changes during COVID-19, a review of the literature on Black homeschooling, and concluding with implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Learning-Mode Choice, Student Engagement, and Achievement Growth During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unanticipated, near-universal shift from in-person to virtual instruction in the spring of 2020. During the 2020-21 school year, schools began to reopen, and families were faced with decisions regarding the instructional mode for their children. We leverage administrative, survey, and virtual-learning data to examine the determinants of family learning-mode choice and associations between virtual education, student engagement, and academic achievement. Family preference for virtual (versus face-to-face) instruction was highly associated with subsequent school-level infection rates and appeared relatively uniform within schools. We find that students assigned to a higher proportion of instructional days in virtual mode experienced higher rates of attendance but negative achievement growth compared to students who were assigned a higher proportion of instructional days in face-to-face mode. Insights from this study can be used to better understand family preferences as well as to target and refine virtual learning in a post-COVID-19 society.

Catholic Higher Education in the United States: Exploring the Decision to Enroll from a Student’s (or a Student Advisor’s) Point of View

In many countries, those considering enrolling in a Catholic college or university may have a choice between a few universities or none at all. In the United States, they can choose between more than 240 Catholic colleges and universities. This provides a rich array of choices, but it may also make the decision of where to apply and ultimately enroll more complicated. This article provides a simple framework to discuss some of the factors that affect the decision to enroll in higher education and where to enroll. Four basic sequential questions that students may ask are considered: (1) Should I go to college? (2) How should I select a college? (3) How can I compare different colleges? (4) Should I go to a Catholic college? By providing elements of response to these questions, the article provides insights into the decision to enroll in Catholic education and its implications for universities.

The Pre-Pandemic Growth in Online Public Education and the Factors that Predict It

While spring of 2020 introduced virtual instruction to all public schools, virtual schooling had already been growing in most states. We focus on pre-COVID-19 changes to full-time virtual school enrollment in public schools, and provide evidence on the relationship between virtual school enrollment, internet speed, community demographics, and traditional K–12 school achievement levels. We find negative associations between online enrollment and test achievement in brick-and-mortar schools, and low internet speeds. There is some evidence that students are less likely to enroll in virtual schools as the share of students of their own demographic in brick-and-mortar schools increases. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of School Choice is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A Strategic City-Based Framework for Effectively and Efficiently Educating Students with Disabilities

Charter schools' autonomy and flexibility provides them with the opportunity to find ways to close the performance gap between students with and without disabilities, but deep-seated, systemic challenges often cause individual charters to struggle to do so on their own. For cities with an established charter sector, a city-wide, collaborative strategy involving all stakeholders to overcome these systemic challenges is proposed. By working together, charter schools can fulfill their potential with regard to educating students with disabilities. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying effective strategies to accelerate learning for students with disabilities and optimize the flexibility extended to charter schools is essential. This brief introduces critical components of a strategic, city-based framework, along with details regarding how this multi-pronged approach can drive systemic and sustainable change that will lead to better access and outcomes for students with disabilities. Each component has value independently, but when combined in a coherent manner so that each augments the others, the framework has the potential to ensure that students with disabilities have access to a robust continuum of educational opportunities in districts that have widespread public school choice and, in particular, charter schools. If individual charter schools, regional government officials, authorizers, and funders work together to create a new system that spreads the responsibility, incentivizes schools to support students with disabilities, and nurtures talent to support these goals, charter schools can be agents of change for closing the gap between students with disabilities and the general education population. [This paper is the result of a collaboration with Pathway 2 Tomorrow: Local Visions for America's Future (P2T).]

Conceptions of Choice, Equity, & Rurality in Educational Research: A Review of the Literature on Rural Education and School Choice Policies

Issues of school choice regularly appear in popular discourse related to resources, equity, and freedom in education. Although school choice policies and initiatives promote a vision of additional schooling options for all students, the predominant target of choice advocates and researchers has been densely populated, urban cores in the United States (McShane & Smarick, 2018). However, this belies the fact that rural communities have also engaged in forms of school choice decision-making. While some research has explored rural school choice, we believe there are myriad, novel opportunities for meaningful education research regarding school choice, equity, and conceptions of rurality. Over nine million children in the United States, or nearly 20% of the public-school student population, attend a school designated as rural (Kena et al., 2015;Showalter et al., 2019). Additionally, rural schools and districts have remarkable levels of variability in terms of racial, ethnic, cultural, and geographic compositions. These contexts provide significant motivation for further explorations of rurality and school choice. This review is not intended to advocate for an expansion of school choice policies. Rather, we aim for it to serve as a call for additional research that seeks to better understand how school choice policies are currently operating in rural areas and their implications for educational equity. To advance toward a robust research agenda for rural education and school choice, we review the existing literature on school choice and rural education, provide key recommendations, and assert the need for additional consideration of the following: critical socio-political histories and theories;methodological diversity;issues of race, racism, sexual orientation, and equity;social-emotional learning and development;impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic;and broadened understandings of rurality.

Racial Justice through Expanded Choice

The American public education system is already a school choice system, which is navigated in four ways. Families are lucky (as the author ultimately was, having received a scholarship from grades 7-12 to an independent, all-boys school just outside the city). They are rich enough to pay private school tuition, or they are able to leverage the mortgage market to get a house near the right school. They are connected and thus know the right people. Or they lie about where they live to gain entrance to a school for which they normally would not be eligible. While it might be too much to expect state board members to set policy based on luck or social networks, those based on wealth and address should be wholly in their purview--and top of mind, given the historical context from which these policies arose. So why would a state board support or adopt school choice policies in 2021 and into the future? This article offers three reasons worth considering: (1) The effects on schooling of segregated neighborhoods;(2) The way the pandemic has redefined choice, and (3) The demonstrated lack of resilience of many existing school systems.

Online learning: How do brick and mortar schools stack up to virtual schools?

The Covid-19 pandemic forced many American schools to hastily transition to online learning. I assess how the online learning experience of students enrolled in brick and mortar schools that transitioned to online learning in Spring 2020 compared to the experience of students who were already enrolled in virtual schools when the pandemic began. Absent formal assessments to quantify learning loss, such comparison can help contextualize the performance of brick and mortar schools in their transition to online learning, and perhaps inform how policy can promote higher-quality online schooling, a burgeoning policy concern amidst widespread school closures forecasted for the 2020-2021 academic year. I hypothesize that, owing to experience and expertise, virtual schools provided a higher quality education than did brick and mortar schools operating online. I test this hypothesize by administering surveys to parents of students enrolled in online schools. When applicable, parents also complete a survey about the online learning experience of siblings enrolled in brick and mortar schools that switched to online learning in Spring 2020. I compare survey outcomes across four constructs: active learning, communication, pedagogical efficacy, and classroom management. Overall, I observe that virtual schools earned substantially higher marks across the four constructs.