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Item Stress and the pre-schooler: books that can help(Wheelock College, 1989-04-25) Benedetti, Anne[As the director of a large pre-school ,teachers often share their classroom problems with me, and ask for advice and suggestions. When this happens I find myself going back to my classes of yesteryears, and have discovered that very often I used a good children's book to help me foster discussion about a stressful situation. I now keep a resource of these books in my office for ready use. Our guinea pig died after a long life at our school, and I was able to pull out, The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, by Judith Viorst. This helped to get the children thinking about all the things they liked about our "Bandit"; the teachers were amazed at all the memories that poured forth. I have added some informational books, such as the Fred Rogers series, First Experiences, in this case: When A Pet Dies.* This book as all in. the series has a sensitive text and appropriate photographs. It was useful to have these books handy at such a time. It helped explain the issue to children, and reminded teachers of the importance of getting. the children to talk about their feelings.]Item The 4th Industrial Revolution and social and emotional learning in Africa: implications for educational materials(NISSEM, 2022-09-01) Marsay, G.; Atitsogbe, Kokou A.; Ouedraogo, A.; Nsubuga, H.; Pari, P.; Kossi, E.Y.U.; Park, C.M.; Solberg, V.S.H.; Benavot, A.; Sinclair, M.The 4th Industrial Revolution (IR) is disrupting almost every industry across the globe. Characterized as ‘a fusion of technologies,’ the 4th IR is blurring the line between physical and digital spaces and influencing the rapid transformation of business and government systems with the potential to improve the quality of our life, including educational opportunities (Schwab, 2016). This paper discusses challenges of the 4th IR in four sub-Saharan African countries – Burkina Faso, South Africa, Togo, and Uganda – as they relate to the skills that cannot be replaced by robots and machines and the importance of social and emotional learning skills. The premise of this paper is that SEL can help young people respond to the challenges and opportunities of the 4th IR even in countries that are less technologically advanced and might seem weakly influenced or uninfluenced by it. It concludes with implications for educational materials, in particular the use of online resources and social media as a fast-growing method for providing information and training, and on what needs to be considered for designing educational materials in the post-COVID era.Item Equity is quality, quality is equity. Operationalizing equity in quality rating and improvement systems(2022-06-01) Meek, Shantel; Iruka, Iheoma; Soto-Boykin, Xigrid; Blevins, Danielle; Alexander, Brittany; Cardona, Mario; Castro, DinaItem Two years later: how COVID-19 has shaped the teacher workforce(SAGE Publications, 2023-02-27) Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Chi, Olivia; Orellana, AlexisThe unprecedented challenges of teaching during COVID-19 prompted fears of a mass exodus from the profession. We examine the extent to which these fears were realized using administrative records of Massachusetts teachers between 2015–2016 and 2021–2022. Relative to prepandemic levels, average turnover rates were similar going into the fall of 2020 but increased by 17% (from 15.0% to 17.5%) going into the fall of 2021. The fall 2021 increases were particularly high among newly hired teachers (31% increase) but were lower among Black and Hispanic/Latinx teachers (5% increases among both groups). Gaps in turnover rates between schools serving higher and lower concentrations of economically disadvantaged students narrowed during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The same holds true for gaps in turnover between schools serving higher and lower shares of Black and Hispanic/Latinx students. Together, these findings highlight important differences in teachers’ responses to the pandemic across subgroups and the need to improve early-career retention to ensure long-term stability within the teacher workforce.Item Regulatory arbitrage in teacher hiring and retention: evidence from Massachusetts charter schools(Elsevier BV, 2022-11) Bruhn, Jesse; Imberman, Scott; Winters, MarcusItem Colorado school counseling investments payoff for students!: a CCD Center case study(Coalition for Career Development and BU Center for Future Readiness, 2022-05-15) Engelmann, A.; Solberg, V. Scott H.; Tucker, AndyItem Condition of career readiness in the United States(Coalition for Career Development and BU Center for Future Readiness, 2022-05-15) Solberg, V. Scott H.; Donnelly, Hayoung; Kroyer-Kubicek, Robin; Basha, Rhonda; Curtis, Greg; Jaques, ErinThe 2022 inaugural Condition of Career Readiness in the United States report highlights findings and recommendations to help business and industry, federal and state agencies, elected officials, and national organizations reflect on what investments and resources are needed to support the future economic competitiveness of our nation. This inaugural report describes our states’ progress towards becoming a Career Ready Nation. The report was produced for the Coalition for Career Development Center (CCD Center) by the Boston University Center for Future Readiness with support from American Student Assistance (ASA) and the Collaborative on Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL).Item The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted both school bullying and cyberbullying(2022-09) Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Goodman, Joshua; Green, Jennifer; Holt, MelissaItem Objective course placement and college readiness: evidence from targeted middle school math acceleration(Pergamon, 2017) Dougherty, Shaun M.; Goodman, Joshua S.; Hill, Darryl V.; Litke, Erica G.; Page, Lindsay C.Item Can states take over and turn around school districts? Evidence from Lawrence, Massachusetts(SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 2017) Schueler, Beth E.; Goodman, Joshua S.; Deming, David J.The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and interventions. We study a district-wide turnaround of a type that may become more common under ESSA, an accountability-driven state takeover of Massachusetts’s Lawrence Public Schools (LPS). A differences-in-differences framework comparing LPS to demographically similar districts not subject to state takeover shows that the turnaround’s first 2 years produced sizable achievement gains in math and modest gains in reading. We also find no evidence that the turnaround resulted in slippage on nontest score outcomes and suggestive evidence of positive effects on grade progression among high school students. Intensive small-group instruction over vacation breaks may have led to particularly large achievement gains for participating students.Item Heat and learning(American Economic Association, 2018) Goodman, Joshua; Hurwitz, Michael; Park, Jisung; Smith, JonathanItem Can online delivery increase access to education?(University of Chicago Press, 2019) Goodman, Joshua; Melkers, Julia; Pallais, AmandaItem Take two! SAT retaking and college enrollment gaps(American Economic Association, 2020) Goodman, Joshua; Gurantz, Oded; Smith, JonathanOnly half of SAT-takers retake the exam, with even lower retake rates among low-income students and underrepresented minority (URM) students. We exploit discontinuous jumps in retake probabilities at multiples of 100, driven by left-digit bias, to estimate retaking’s causal effects. Retaking substantially improves SAT scores and increases four-year college enrollment rates, particularly for low-income and URM students. Eliminating disparities in retake rates could close up to 10 percent of the income-based gap and up to 7 percent of the race-based gap in four-year college enrollment rates of high school graduates. (JEL I21, I23, I24, J15)Item O Brother, where start thou? Sibling spillovers on college and major choice in four countries(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2021) Altmejd, Adam; Barrios-Fernández, Andrés; Drlje, Marin; Goodman, Joshua; Hurwitz, Michael; Kovac, Dejan; Mulhern, Christine; Neilson, Christopher; Smith, JonathanFamily and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions, but causal identification of those effects is notoriously challenging. Using data from Chile, Croatia, Sweden, and the United States, we study within-family spillovers in college and major choice across a variety of national contexts. Exploiting college-specific admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings’ college options, we show that in all four countries a meaningful portion of younger siblings follow their older sibling to the same college or college-major combination. Older siblings are followed regardless of whether their target and counterfactual options have large, small, or even negative differences in quality. Spillover effects disappear, however, if the older sibling drops out of college, suggesting that older siblings’ college experiences matter. That siblings influence important human capital investment decisions across such varied contexts suggests that our findings are not an artifact of particular institutional detail but a more generalizable description of human behavior. Causal links between the postsecondary paths of close peers may partly explain persistent college enrollment inequalities between social groups, and this suggests that interventions to improve college access may have multiplier effects.Item The COVID-19 pandemic is a lousy natural experiment for studying the effects of online learning(2021-09-01) Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Goodman, JoshuaItem The pandemic’s effect on demand for public schools, homeschooling, and private schools(Elsevier, 2022-08) Musaddiq, Tareena; Stange, Kevin; Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Goodman, JoshuaItem Caring, character, and community: leadership in times of crisis, lessons learned(LiberiaUniversitaria, 2023-06-30) Coleman, Hardin L.K.; Barcay, ElizabethTo prepare the next generation to become caring and effectively engaged citizens requires a multi-faceted approach. It includes a focus on personal development, professional development, program development and implementation, and systems change [1]. To deepen our understanding of how leadership integrates these values into practice, this paper presents a thematic analysis of how leaders of PK-12 schools, higher education institutions, and leaders of community-based organizations integrate an ethic of caring, a focus on their own and others’ character development, and a commitment to serving the needs of others in order to guide and inform their leadership in times of crisis. We interviewed thirteen leaders who responded to the question, “How have you integrated caring, character, and commitment into your leadership style while managing crises?” Four of the leaders work with PK-12 schools, four work in higher education, and five work in youth-serving community based organizations. Some of the leaders have explicit commitments to a focus on character education and/or have a spiritual grounding in their work. Others were more focused on social justice, equity, and system change. All were deeply committed to creating conditions in which youth can flourish. This paper will summarize their thinking about how to use an ethic of caring, a focus on one’s own and others’ character development, and a commitment to community to create high-quality learning experiences and opportunities for all youth.Item Support and perceptions of teachers working with students with special needs during the COVID-19 pandemic(MDPI AG, 2022-08-05) Donnelly, Hayoung Kim; Solberg, V. Scott H.; Shavers, Efe I.; Howard, Kimberly A.S.; Ismail, Bushra; Nieves, HectorTeachers serving students with special needs, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and students from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds experienced a myriad of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to assess whether and to what extent teachers received resources during the pandemic, and to evaluate the impact of this on their perceptions of student academic engagement. Using the American Teacher Panel (ATP) data collected in October 2020, this research found that 41% of teachers working with diverse and marginalized students did not receive any resources tailored specifically for students with special needs. Teacher experiences with resources were clustered into four groups: Most Supported (35%), Least Supported (41%), Moderately Supported A (16%; received support primarily with students with disabilities), and Moderately Supported B (8%; received support primarily with students with racial/ethnic backgrounds). Across the four groups of teachers, teacher groups classified as less supported were more likely to be teaching in more urbanized settings with larger size schools than the other teacher groups. Additionally, they perceived their students as attending less often and being less ready for grade-level coursework than their counterparts. Discussions for school leaders and counselors are outlined to emphasize the importance of teacher support for effective education during the COVID-19 pandemic.Item Predictors of teacher burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic with machine learning(2022-03-31) Shavers, Efe; Kim, Hayoung; Howard, Kimberly; Solberg, V. ScottItem Social-emotional learning and career development in elementary settings(Informa UK Limited, 2022-05-04) Howard, Kimberly A.S.; Ferrari, Lea