When done right, professional development can improve teacher practice and student experiences. A new paper, published by the Research Partnership for Professional Learning and co-authored by Professor John Papay, examines the literature to understand what works in the field of professional development—and, just as importantly, what doesn’t.

Patricia Shiebler and Sarosha Hemani were chosen by the Knowles Teacher Initiative to participate in a five-year program that supports early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers.

Despite growing recognition of diverse forms of parental involvement, scarce research exists on the critical influence of sociocultural contexts on parental involvement in their children’s education. Building on and modifying Hoover-Dempsey’s parental involvement model, Yoko Yamamoto, Jin Li (Brown University), and Janine Bempechat (Boston University) propose a new sociocultural model to explain Chinese immigrant parents’ motivations for school-based and home-based involvement.

A new study and working paper co-authored by Professor Susanna Loeb synthesizes existing research on the implementation of tutoring programs, defined as one-to-one or small-group instruction in which a human tutor supports students in grades K-12 in an academic subject area.

Ayana Bass is a lifelong Rhode Island resident and a certified Elementary, Special Educator. At Equity Institute, she focuses on developing alternative educator pathway programs for school support professionals to address teacher shortages and diversity within the teacher workforce.

Meet Grace King '23 MAT, a future social studies teacher with a passion for spotlighting Rhode Island’s diverse history! 

Using a series of original survey experiments, this study by Jonathan Collins shows that Americans maintain strong support for antiracist teaching, but that support is drastically weakened when curriculum features the term "critical race theory."

Preparing K-12 students for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields is an ongoing challenge confronting state policymakers. Examining the implementation of a science graduation testing requirement for high-school students in Massachusetts, findings by John Papay and others demonstrate the importance of equity considerations in designing and evaluating ambitious new policy initiatives.

Policymakers have renewed calls for expanding instructional time in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Matthew Kraft and Sarah Novicoff establish a set of empirical facts about time in school, synthesize the literature on the causal effects of instructional time, and conduct a case study of time use in an urban district.

In this column, Jonathan Collins discusses participatory budgeting in the U.S., the impact of democratic innovation strategies, and what democratic urban school reform means in practice.

The Swearer Center provides Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR) Course Mini-Grants to instructors of undergraduate and graduate courses at Brown, in order to support the implementation of high-impact community-engaged learning experiences.

The Texas State Board of Education voted this month to delay the revision process of the state’s K-12 social studies standards until 2025, bowing to conservative pressure against drafts intended to make history instruction more inclusive. Jonathan Collins says educators and parents who want more-inclusive history taught in schools will have to be civically engaged.

For fourth graders across the country, test results show the worst declines in reading and math scores in more than three decades. In this Q&A, Susanna Loeb discusses the students who suffered most during the pandemic, the different types of learning loss that kids experienced, and why the pandemic should lead people to reimagine schooling.

The results of a national test showed just how devastating the last two years have been for 9-year-old schoolchildren, especially the most vulnerable. Commentary by Professor Susanna Loeb.

His column, Policy Solutions, is about tackling some of the most pressing issues in education. His first column, "Defying the gravitational pull of education politics," looks at the threat politics surrounding public education poses to poor and/or Black and brown students.

The Swearer Center provides Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR) Course Mini-Grants to instructors of undergraduate and graduate courses at Brown, in order to support the implementation of high-impact community-engaged learning experiences.

In this recently updated working paper, Matthew Kraft and Joshua Bleiberg offer analyses that illustrate the imperative to build more timely, detailed, and nationally representative data systems on the K-12 education labor market to better inform policy.

Education policy and the role of schools are a neglected part of the welfare state. Yet schools may be important sites for understanding how policy, work, and families intersect in immigrant households. Drawing on thirty interviews from seventeen households, an article co-authored by Professor David Rangel highlights the experiences of families with young children during a time of increased national hostility toward immigrants.

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

An article written by Professor Yoko Yamamoto, "School-home relations: Family engagement in education in the U.S.," was published on Child Research Net in Japan. In this report, she describes how culturally responsive family engagement could build a bridge between minority and immigrant families and schools in the U.S. The article was written in Japanese for practitioners, teachers, parents, and scholars in Japan.

Chapters in the book offer a close analysis of reform practices in countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas to consider cultural, social, political, and functional aspects which drive or inhibit the success of reform initiatives. Drawing on key findings from chapters of the book, Professor Wong and his collaborator conclude with a chapter that highlights lessons to support global efforts in providing high-quality, equitable education for the whole child.