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Deborah Stipek, Ph.D., a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, said that may not be the right question to ask. “I think a more useful one is, ‘How do we ensure that our children get the best possible opportunities to learn under these challenging circumstances?’” she said.

For preschoolers, that starts with prioritizing the crucial social-emotional skills that form the building blocks of learning, said Elisabeth Jones, a preschool teacher at the Child Development Center at Texas State University. When kids go back to school, she said, “they’ll be expected to wait their turn and share materials, and many aren’t getting the opportunity to practice that right now.”

Waiting can have benefits, particularly for children who have trouble self-regulating, said Thomas Dee, Ph.D., an economist who studies education policy at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. Some research, including a study he conducted with Hans Henrik Sievertsen at the University of Bristol, suggests that holding off on formal schooling can give those children time to get better at controlling their behavior, handling emotions and pursuing long-term goals — as long as they spend the year in an intellectually engaging, developmentally appropriate, play-based environment, such as a high-quality preschool.

The racial achievement gap on test scores between black and white students has narrowed in the past four decades, but remains at roughly two to four years of learning. Mr Pearman’s research has documented that poor neighbourhoods adversely affect students’ maths scores even if their schools are good. Black students who get to college are less likely than others to complete their courses; black men have an especially poor chance of making it to graduation. In 2016 only 29% of black adults above the age of 25 had an associate degree or higher, compared with 44% of white adults. At a time when the premium that a degree adds to lifetime earnings has increased a lot, this disparity is a big economic disadvantage.

Students of color are suspended at disproportionately higher rates than white students and, on average, perform more poorly on standardized tests. But no peer-reviewed nationwide research has documented a link between the two disparities—until now.

A new Stanford-led study published in AERA Open finds that an increase in either the discipline gap or the academic achievement gap between black and white students in the United States predicts a jump in the other. Similarly, as one gap narrows, so does the other. 

While many studies have examined the impact of gentrification on urban neighborhoods and housing, relatively few have examined its effects on local schools.

A new study led by Stanford University’s Francis Pearman provides the first national evidence on patterns and relations of gentrification with respect to urban schooling, finding links between race, socioeconomic status and enrollment in neighborhood schools.

The 2020 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings are unveiled and CEPA faculty and alumni* score high marks on the list. Of the 200 education scholars ranked, 12 faculty and alumni* made the list: Eric Hanushek, Martin Carnoy, Michael W. Kirst, Sean Reardon, Thomas Dee, Caroline Hoxby, Rob Reich, Jason Grissom*, Eric Bettinger, Daphna Bassok*, Eric Taylor*

The first rigorous evaluation of one of the larger programs came out in October 2019 and found some promising results. Stanford University researchers studied a special class expressly for black teenage boys in Oakland, California, called the Manhood Development Program. They found that black boys were less likely to drop out of high school if the class was offered at their school compared to black boys at schools where it wasn’t offered. In a high school with 60 black boys in ninth grade, only three students dropped out, on average, instead of five students in schools that didn’t offer the course.