The Board of Overseers of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University established the permanent annual scholarship in 2012 for an Urban Education Policy masters student who most epitomizes the former Brown University president’s commitment to educational equity and social justice.

The move away from exit exams has a lot to do with a growing sense that, while standardized tests measure student learning, they don’t capture the full range of student abilities, said John Papay, an associate professor of education at Brown University who studies high-stakes testing.

New research from the Annenberg Institute offers a case study of how one state, Massachusetts, has fared in addressing the needs of a unique English-learner population and what lessons other states can learn.

In his latest column for Kappan, Professor Jonathan Collins explains that superintendent turnover is one of the biggest problems plaguing urban school districts.

A team of Annenberg Institute researchers, including Professor John Papay, has released a report on the demographic characteristics and educational outcomes of high school newcomers, defined as English learners (ELs) in their first 12 months of schooling in the United States.

“We ask the K-12 school system to do lots of things,” said John Papay, an associate professor at Brown University who studies high-stakes testing. “One of the questions is ‘How do we have requirements ensure students leave high school ready to live productive lives?’”

A psychologist and an economist walk into a debate … Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Matthew A. Kraft, associate professor of education and economics at Brown University, discuss looping—staying with the same teacher for multiple years.

“Our work shows that there is good evidence that the MCAS is measuring the academic skills of students,” said John Papay, associate professor of education and economics at Brown University and director of the Annenberg Institute. If MCAS scores simply reflected “teaching to the test, we wouldn’t see the same relationship with long-term outcomes that we do,” the Brown economist noted.

Ellie Jurmann is a current senior in Brown's Combined Baccalaureate/Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program. After completing her undergraduate degree in 2024, she will enroll in the MAT program as a member of the mathematics cohort.

Adam Jackson is from Carlisle, PA, and is a current student in our MAT-Science Education program. He has a B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University.

In an increasingly competitive academic environment, high school students often turn to data to inform their college application decisions. Professor Lindsay Page and others show that the adoption of one popular tool to view historical admissions data, Naviance, inadvertently dissuaded many high-achieving high school students from applying to colleges for which they were competitive.

In July, Professor Tricia Kelly traveled to Guatemala with educators and pre-service teachers to engage with local educators, youth, and families, and to exchange ideas and understanding of Guatemalan and U.S. educational systems and practices. Here she reflects on the experience.

In this chapter, Professor Lindsay Page and co-authors present the economic rationale for financial aid, a summary of how aid works in the US context, and common methodological challenges in the study of financial aid.

Three grads of Brown’s master’s program in urban education policy are working to help Providence families get their kids to college. One, Madalyn Ciampi ’17 AM, helped launch the nonprofit Providence Promise six years ago and is the organization’s executive director. Two others joined her: Rachel Palumbo ’21 AM, development manager, and Chandana Srinivas ’21 AM, family engagement director.

A team of researchers, including Professor John Papay, has released a new report on the challenges and opportunities that Rhode Island's education system faces as the state emerges from the pandemic. As a valuable resource for ongoing efforts to enhance public education across the state, the report underscores the importance of collective action in ensuring a brighter future for Rhode Island's students.

In August, LeBron James' I Promise school in Ohio came under scrutiny for its low test scores. District politics and systems may be ruining LeBron’s initiative, writes Professor Jonathan Collins.

On this episode of "Trending Globally" Dan Richards talks with Professor Jonathan Collins about participatory budgeting — where it came from, what it looks like on the ground, and how it might help strengthen our democracy, one community at a time.

Danielle Emerson '23 is a Diné writer from Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation. She has a B.A. in Education Studies and a B.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University. She writes fiction, poetry, plays, and creative essays, drawing on personal narratives and places of home—wherever that may be.

Despite documented benefits to college completion, more than a third of students who initially enroll in college do not ultimately earn a credential. A paper co-authored by Professor Lindsay Page reports on the effect of a text-based chatbot with artificial intelligence (AI) capability on college students' academic task navigation in introductory courses.

Professor Yoko Yamamoto and co-author, Naoko Yabuta, published a book chapter in "Contemporary Perspectives on Research on Immigration in Early Childhood Education." In addition to demonstrating cultural beliefs and educational practices that bring challenges to immigrant students, Yamamoto and Yabuta examined a wealth of research on "empowering schools" that bring human rights education and culturally responsive practices in Japan.

Professor Matthew A. Kraft and co-authors in this paper document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and their teachers, counselors, and coaches.

Professor Yoko Yamamoto has authored a chapter "Education, Cultural Capital, and Social Class Reproduction" published in Sustainability, Diversity, and Equality: Key Challenges for Japan. The chapter aims to present students’ educational opportunities and experiences related to family socioeconomic status (SES) in Japan.