Students need more support at home. Parents do, too.... Read more about Not All Parents Can Be At-Home Teachers This Fall. Principals Must Be Prepared Either Way

On the other side of the country, another effort, housed at Harvard University, is also helping districts tackle chronic absenteeism. Started in 2015, the Proving Ground program helps school districts leverage data to design, plan, implement and test interventions to improve learning outcomes. The program has 59 school district partners, most of them in New York and Ohio.

One of its first successful intervention programs involved weekly postcards sent home...

To address concerns about cost and effectiveness, Kraft and Harvard University education professor Heather C. Hill created and studied a virtual math-coaching program that could potentially be a cheaper way for districts to have dedicated math coaches. The program was based on a framework that was co-developed by researchers at Harvard and the American Institutes for Research. It centered on practices aligned to the Common Core State Standards, such as rich meaning-making and encouraging student questions.

While COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 challenged every school district, students in rural districts faced especially significant barriers. In particular, lack of consistent internet limited their access to online instruction.

These gaps in access to the internet and instruction were evident in our research. However, we also found that rural districts devised innovative strategies to help put materials and instruction in the hands of students.

The start of the next school year is approaching quickly, and many districts plan to start remotely. Ensuring...

Cambridge, MA (August 5, 2020) The Partnering in Education Research (PIER) Fellowship, an initiative of the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University, has received $4.5 million in funding from the federal Institute of Education Sciences to transform the way the next generation of education researchers are trained.

Launched in 2015 in collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), the PIER Fellowship gives Harvard graduate students opportunities to work with...

Breathing exercises can help students cope with stress and improve their ability to learn, studies say.... Read more about California schools turn to mindfulness to help students cope with stress