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This is still a working paper, which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed and may still undergo revisions.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

Study on Rise of ELLs

English-language-learner enrollment in K-12 schools has increased by more than 1 million students since 2000, according to a new report. There are now an estimated 4.9 million children in U.S. public schools learning the English language. These students are in classrooms in most school systems—and enrollment is surging in states across the South and Midwest that had almost no English-learners at the turn of the century. California has the greatest number and percentage: 20.2%.
Office of English Language Acquisition. (2020). English learners: Demographic trends. Washington, DC: US Department of Education.
https://ncela.ed.gov/files/fast_facts/19-0193_Del4.4_ELDemographicTrends_021220_508.pdf 
and
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), "Local Education Agency Universe Survey," 2000–01 through 2016–17. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_204.20.asp?current=yes

Predicting Student Achievement Study

Students' third-grade reading and math tests have an 80% likelihood of predicting outcomes in 10th grade, according to a recent study. Data from students across six states also link students' academic mobility to socioeconomic factors.
A student's ranking in his state's 3rd grade reading and math tests was 80 percent predictive of his 10th grade performance, after controlling for errors in state test measurements, the researchers found. That meant a student struggling in the bottom quarter of 3rd graders in her state was very likely to end up performing in the lowest 25 percent of 8th graders—and to end up in the same percentile in 10th grade. If a school district provided academic mobility one standard deviation higher than the average of districts in its state, its struggling 3rd graders on average improved nearly 6 percentile points on the state rankings by grade 8 and became nearly 8 percentage points more likely to graduate high school on time.
While the vast majority of students graduated high school, students' 3rd-grade achievement was still 25 percent to 35 percent predictive of whether they earned a diploma in four or five years. Urban students who struggled in 3rd grade were much less likely to graduate than those who attended rural or suburban schools. It is surprising at how little chance low-performing students had of changing their academic ranking within any of the districts across all six states.
Goldhaber, D. (2020). National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2020/02/Academic_mobility_low.html