How schools should respond to pandemics.

“This resource provides the text of state statutes and regulations—as well as noncodified guidance from state health and education agencies—that relates to pandemic planning for schools. This tool is designed as a resource for educators, policymakers, and general audiences to learn more about pandemic planning for schools within their states; it is not designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of these policies.”
Nunez, B. (2020, Mar. 11).  As COVID-19 Spreads, Most States Have Laws That Address How Schools Should Respond to Pandemics.  ChildTrends. 

How to bridge homework gap with tech study

Enhancing connections between schools and communities could help close digital divides and curb the "homework gap," according to a study of schools in Alabama and Arizona. The study finds that bridging this divide relies on robust in-school technology programs and relevant community connections.
Lee, N. (2020). Bridging digital divides between schools and communities. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/bridging-digital-divides-between-schools-and-communities/
 

Social-emotional learning

Schools that prioritize emotional and social development and other soft skills over test scores enable students to perform better in school and later in life, according to a Northwestern University study of more than 150,000 Chicago high-school students. "What we're showing is that schools that actually cause kids to become more gritty, those kids tend to be likely to persist more in college," says economist and study author Kirabo Jackson. Jackson has calculated that schools that build social-emotional qualities such as the ability to resolve conflicts and the motivation to work hard  are getting even better short-term and long-term results for students than schools that only boost test scores. The schools that develop soft skills produced students with higher grades, fewer absences and fewer disciplinary problems and arrests in high school. Later, the students who attended these high schools graduated and went to college in higher rates. 

This is still a working paper, which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed and may still undergo revisions. In February 2020, Jackson presented these early findings at conference of the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Jackson, K. (2020).  School effects on socio-emotional development, school-based arrests and educational attainment. 

https://caldercenter.org/publications/school-effects-socio-emotional-development-school-based-arrests-and-educational

Pre-Service School Librarians’ Perceptions

New research explores graduate-level instruction on research designs and methods for pre-service school librarians. For their study, the research team f, examined the question, “How should a school library program prepare pre-service school librarians to integrate research into their future practice?” Using a focus group of pre-service school librarians, the team critically examined instruction through an existing two-course sequence of research methods in education with an emphasis on school libraries.

DiScala, Jeffrey, Elizabeth A. Burns, and Sue C. Kimmel. 2020. “Pre-Service School Librarians’ Perceptions of Research Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study.” School Library Research, 23.

http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/pubs/slr/vol23/SLR_PreserviceSchoolLibPerceptions_V23.pdf

Skills for coding

The ability to learn languages is a better predictor of success in computer programming and coding than math skills, researchers  found. The study points to stereotypes and math prerequisite courses as barriers to attracting more diversity to coding and connects coding more to the cognitive skills needed to learn languages and the working memory of students.

Prat, C.S., Madhyastha, T.M., Mottarella, M.J. et al. Relating Natural Language Aptitude to Individual Differences in Learning Programming Languages. Sci Rep 10, 3817 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60661-8