education 20 projects

• Curriculum and Instruction Master's
• Reading Masters
• Reading Certificate
• TESOL Master's
• TESOL Certificate
• Educational Administration Master’s
• Educational Administration Certificate
• Autism Master's
• Autism Certificate
• Leadership in Special and Inclusive Education Certificate
• High Incidence Disabilities Master's
• Secondary Special Education and Transition Master's
• Secondary Special Education and Transition Certificate
• Virtual Learning Resources
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Video Gallery
• Financial Aid

What Is the 20% Project in Education?

The story of the 20% Project goes back nearly a century.

In 1923, while at an auto body shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, 3M engineer Richard Drew noticed a car painter struggling with tape that ineffectively kept paint from bleeding into areas where it didn’t belong. Although 3M was primarily an abrasives manufacturer, Drew was sure that the company could create a product to solve that problem.

His commitment to creating a superior ‘masking tape’ earned him a warning from 3M’s then-vice president, William McKnight: He should confine his efforts to sandpaper-related projects. Drew continued the project in his spare time, eventually pairing cabinetmaker’s glue with treated crepe paper to create what we now call Scotch TM tape.

As a result, McKnight, who went on to become 3M’s president, incorporated ‘The 15 Percent Rule’ into his core management principles. It empowers 3M employees to use up to 15% of their time to pursue seemingly out-of-left-field ideas about which they’re passionate. McKnight later wrote, “Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.” 1

Building on McKnight’s approach, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin implemented a strategy called ‘20% time.’ In the company’s 2004 initial public offering letter, they noted, “We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google. This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner.” 2 Developments resulting from the so-called 20% Project include Gmail, Google News, and the Google Teacher Academy. 3

Today, educators are utilizing the 20% Project in their classrooms, hoping that it fosters creativity, innovation, and intrinsic motivation 4 . Read on to explore how the 20% Project works in education.

Creating Autonomous Learners

“Our students' workplaces will be places with teams at tables, not individuals in cubicles,” she says. “They will be asked to be innovative and create the next tool, not to push bureaucratic paper. We must teach them how to think on their own without being told what to do.” 3

She promotes 20% time as an effective means of teaching autonomy. In it, students are afforded 20% of class time, or one hour per week, to work on and explore one topic of their choosing.

The 20% Project and the Genius Hour

20% Project ideas are as varied as the students who present them, with past projects including these, among many others: 5

• Write a novel / children's book / book of original poems
• Learn my family's recipes and cook with my grandmother / aunt / mother
• Create, market, and sell protein drinks
• Raise money for schools in Afghanistan
• Learn how to fix my car: oil, tires, filters, etc.
• Invent an iPhone charger that works using kinetic energy
• Run a marathon
• Construct a computer

A less structured use of 20% time is known as Genius Hour, which gives students one hour each week to work on any learning goal. There is no formalized project involved, and the outcome is largely dependent on the teacher’s chosen requirements. Students learn how to learn autonomously, motivated by working on topics that interest them. Petty relates these goals to Genius Hour endeavors: 6

• Master: practice a skill
• Create: use your imagination
• Learn: gain knowledge about something
• Innovate: solve a problem
• Produce: make something
• Serve: do any of the above for someone else

Performance Goals and Learning Goals

“She had created a performance goal, not a learning goal. Had I known better at the time, I would have prompted her to study how to take two minutes off her mile—a learning goal.” 3

The student’s project would have been much productive, Petty notes, had it involved these steps:

• Create a workout for the next week
• Learn what kind of workout she should be creating
• Evaluate what worked and what didn't from the previous week's workout
• Examine the type of diet that would be ideal for her situation

Widespread, Long-Term Benefits

He sees four groups of people benefitting from this practice: 7

“I've never received a better response from my students than when we did 20% time. We give our students a voice in their own learning path and allow them to go into depth in subjects that we may skim over in our curriculum.”

“Great teachers inspire and make a difference, but great classrooms have students inspiring each other.”

Juliani praises the use of 20% time for bringing his classes together in environments where everyone learns each other’s true interests and passions. Together, he says, they overcome the fear of failure. “We cheered for each other during presentations,” he says, “and picked each other up when things didn't go as planned.”

He sees long-term advantages to using 20% time, as doing so allows him “to ‘teach above the test.’ My students finally understood that learning doesn't start or end with schooling.”

According to Juliani, 20% time makes “success something tangible. It drives [students’] hidden passions to the surface and reinvigorates conversation about purpose in their lives.”

He recalls a parent of one of his students saying, ‘I always knew my daughter liked design and fashion magazines. When she came home making and creating her own clothes, I was shocked. I went to the store with her to pick out patterns, helped her sew and actually make a few outfits!’

Administrators

While lamenting that administrators can get buried in numbers (test scores, graduation rates, and so on), Juliani believes that 20% Projects “bring us back to why we got into education in the first place: to make a difference. My principal said [the 20% and Genius Hour projects] were the best presentations she ever saw—not because of the content, but because of the conviction the students had for their work.”

Use your time to its best possible advantage.

Prepare for your successful education career in the University of Kansas School of Education and Human Sciences. Learn to engage students of all ages in our Department of Curriculum and Teaching , share your gifts with students with disabilities in our Department of Special Education , or keep motivation strong in instructional teams in our Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. We offer online master’s degrees, graduate certificates and licensure endorsement programs , and our admissions advisors are here to answer your questions. Get in touch with us today.

1. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from aem.org/news/giving-employees-permission-to-fail-is-a-formula-for-innovation-at-3m 2. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from businessinsider.com/google-20-percent-time-policy-2015-4 3. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from 20timeineducation.com/home 4. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from thetechclassroom.com/20-project/what-is-the-20-project-in-education 5. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from 20timeineducation.com/20-project/20-time-ideas 6. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from 20timeineducation.com/genius-hour-20-time/20-community 7. Retrieved on April 20, 2021 from edutopia.org/blog/20-percent-time-a-j-juliani

Return to Blog

IMPORTANT DATES

Stay connected.

Link to twitter Link to facebook Link to youtube Link to instagram

The University of Kansas has engaged Everspring , a leading provider of education and technology services, to support select aspects of program delivery.

The University of Kansas prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, ancestry, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, retaliation, gender identity, gender expression and genetic information in the University's programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies and is the University's Title IX Coordinator: the Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, [email protected] , 1246 W. Campus Road, Room 153A, Lawrence, KS, 66045, (785) 864-6414 , 711 TTY.

What is the 20% Project in Education?

Inspire drive, creativity and innovation in the classroom with the 20% project.

Daniel Pink asks us to find what drives us. Sir Ken Robinson asks us to inspire creativity in students. The latest in education is asking us to find essential questions for students.

How? One way is to institute a 20% project in class.

3M started it in the 1950’s with their 15% project. The result? Post-its and masking tape! Google is credited for making the 20% project what it is today. They asked their employees to spend 20% of their time at work to work on a pet project…a project that their job description didn’t cover. As a result of the 20% project at Google, we now have Gmail, AdSense, and Google News. Innovative ideas and projects are allowed to flourish and/or fail without the bureaucracy of committees and budgets.

Several educators today are extending the ideas of the 20% into their own classrooms with the hope that the project fosters creativity, innovation, and intrinsic motivation. And why not? With the CCS around the corner, cross-curricular skills will be more important than ever.

In education the 20% project is a little different for each teacher. There seems to be a divide between teachers who want to give complete autonomy and those who give a little more frontloading before and a little more guidance during.

With autonomy, students are encouraged to seek out their own topics, create their own timelines, research their own products and complete them. The pro for autonomy is that students don’t really see a list of possible ideas and then limit their ideas to that list. They have a little more unmanipulated freedom to think of a new project. Teachers who have tried this method find that they add a few more expectations the next year. I would encourage you to scroll to the bottom of this article and access my Evernote folder with various articles related to the 20% project through Google and teachers who have tried it in their classrooms.

Kevin Brookhouser has a great write-up of his 20% project on his blog: I Teach. I Think. His project ideas include:

• build a tutoring network of high school students helping middle school students
• design a complex videogame map using Valve’s SDK
• start a business selling originally designed t-shirts and accessories
• launch a web-design start-up for local organizations and businesses
• write a graphic novel
• make a stop-motion animated movie for a scene in Macbeth
• write a backpacking guide for teenage girls
• interview senior citizens and document their history
• record and produce a full-length album

I introduce the project in the Explore-Flip/Expain/Apply method. I begin by letting students know they will be working on a 20% project in class throughout the year and then challenge them to do some research on what a 20% project is. I allow them to discuss the ins and outs and then discuss my parameters for the project with them.

I’ve researched several write-ups of educational 20% projects and pieced together suggestions from them. The following are my guidelines:

• Decide carefully. If you choose a small group, you will have to compromise with your group and deal with other personalities. If you work alone, you have complete autonomy but you are responsible for the outcome.
• Is this person a worker or floater?
• Can I get along with this person for the entire semester?
• Is this person going to keep on track or distract me?
• This is not about hanging out with friends,but making something really cool.
• If you are stuck, do some research on other educational 20% projects and take another look at what Google has done.
• You must produce a product.
• Write up a proposal and pitch* it to the rest of the class that includes a purpose, audience, timeline, and resources you will need to complete the project. You will present your pitch in a "science-fair"-type poster session in front of other students, teachers, and community members.
• Choose an adult to be your official mentor. I am an English teacher, I do not have a lot of experience with some of the projects you might choose.
• Reflect on the process each week on the class wiki or personal blog.
• If, at any moment, you feel lost, overwhelmed, or uninspired, you must set a meeting with me to find a solution.
• At the end of the year, you will present your project and reflect on the process in a five-minute TED-style talk.
• Failure is an option. Simply learning from your mistakes teaches you a lot.

I introduce this project in the first week of school and let them know their proposal presentations* are due 5 weeks later (mid-October). They have October, November, December, and January to work on the projects (approx. 17 total class periods to work on it). Their final presentations are part of their 1st semester final exam.

My students are 12th grade college-prep level students. There are about 80 of them total. However, I adapted this project from Troy Cockrum who teaches middle school language arts.

Assessment:

I do not grade the actual 20% Project. The suggested literature below suggests that grading projects like this is actually counter-productive. Instead, I grade the proposal/pitch project and the presentation at the end of the project. See rubrics below.

* Resources:

Electronic Folders:

1. 20% Project Evernote Folder: Collation of articles on the web about Google, 3M, education’s implementation of the 20% Project

2. 20% Evernote Folder: Lesson Plans, Worksheets, and Rubrics

My Own Implementation Reflections:

Week Three Reflection

Project Idea Pitch: Public Poster Session (Week 5)

More to Come as We Progress Through the Year

Suggested Reading:

1. Daniel Pink: Drive

2. Tony Wagner: Creating Innovators

3. Sir Ken Robinson: The Element

The Pitch: 20 Time

One of the main graded assignments that you'll want to implement is the Pitch. This is a science fair-style poster session where your students will have the opportunity to "pitch" their 20% Project to the public. You'll want to schedule the Pitch about 4-5 weeks from the beginning of the project. You can invite teachers, administrators, other classes but even more importantly, you can invite students' families to come and view the project ideas. This project is really popular in the world of EdTech, you may want to consider inviting your district EdTech team. Additionally, superintendents are always looking for positive events to attend, maybe you can extend an invitation to his/her office.

The Pitch is an opportunity for students to check out each other's ideas. It also gives parents an inside look at what the project is and, for some parents, it may be the last opportunity to attend a showcase event like this again. Most importantly, it holds the students publicly accountable for their idea.

Logistical Questions to Consider

• Think about the time and place you'd like to have the event.
• Is one hour going to be enough or would you like to give more time for the audience to come in and out?
• How will you set up the room?
• Will you hold the event during school hours or in the evening?
• If the event is during school hours, will your administrators allow you to pull the students from some of their classes for it?
• Is your classroom big enough or is there another room, like an MPR, that you can reserve for the event?
• How will you invite the audience? Email for staff and parents? Custom flyers/invitations to be mailed home or put in staff boxes?

Student Requirements

Depending on your event room, the poster requirements can be different. If you have great digital equipment in the room, you can have the students do a digital presentation like a rotating slide show. If it is a simple room, you may want to require the students use the big 3-fold posters that will stand on a table by themselves. If doing traditional posters, you might want to give students the option to bring a laptop or tablet to set up in front of the poster to add a digital element to the display.

The one requirement you may want to make about the content of the poster is to include their implementation plan. The implementation plan includes steps and goal dates, this is great information for the students to include in their pitch to their audience.

Students will probably use their 20 Time in the weeks leading up to the pitch to work on their posters. You might want to consider creating a poster about 20 Time to display at the door of the pitch event during this time as well. Your poster will model and set a standard that they'll be able to see and meet.

Dress and Behavior

Explain to your students that this is a formal presentation and their clothing should reflect that. Boys should wear a tie, girls should dress up.

You might not want to allow chairs in the event room. Chairs encourage slacking in presentations like this. Students should stand by their presentation for the duration of the event and be available to any audience members who would like to hear more about their ideas.

How will you grade the event? You can find a sample rubric here , be sure to add tasks that are specific to your own needs. This is one of the major graded assignments of the project and ends up being the most public part of the assignment.

It takes longer to go from one showcase to another than you might think. Think about 4.5 minutes per presentation. One idea might be to hold graded showcase presentations in a separate conference session (maybe do 5 per 20 Time day before the showcase). By doing the grading earlier, you are able to mingle with the audience and control the behavior of the students a bit better.

Centers, Projects, and Initiatives

The research centers, projects, and initiatives based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education are creating new horizons in education by putting innovative ideas into reality. These groundbreaking efforts bring together communities of scholars, practitioners, advocates, and learners to test theories, push research into practice, and develop solutions to improve education outcomes for all.

Center for Digital Thriving

Creates knowledge and research-based resources that help people thrive in a tech-filled world

Center for Education Policy Research

Puts vast data to practical use to address education policy questions and improve outcomes

Center on the Developing Child

Drives research-based innovations to achieve meaningful outcomes for children facing adversity

Supports the cradle-to-career place-based partnership field, driving systems-level change and opening personalized pathways to success for all children and families

Immigration Initiative at Harvard

Advances interdisciplinary scholarship and hands-on research about immigration policy and immigrant communities

Making Caring Common

Establishes guidelines for developing students with a solid moral compass and a passion for making a difference

Project Zero

Creates and fosters dynamic ideas and practices that help teachers zero in on creative ways to teach and inspire students

Public Education Leadership Project

Works to improve leadership competencies of public school administrators through professional development to drive greater educational outcomes

Reach Every Reader

Develops tools to support the vision that all children can develop the skills, knowledge, and interest to become lifelong readers

Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative

Provides educators with the knowledge and resources to cultivate optimal early learning environments and experiences for students

Faculty Research Initiatives and Labs

In addition to the research centers above, faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education conduct individual projects across research, practice, and policy, collaborating with HGSE students and with colleagues and organizations across the field of education.

• Adolescent Ethnic-Racial Identity Development (AERID) Laboratory
• The Black Teacher Archive
• C.A.R.E.S. Lab   
• Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE)   
• Creative Computing Lab  
• Data Wise Project  
• Deeper Learning Dozen  
• Global Education Innovation Initiative  
• Justice in Schools  
• Language Diversity & Literacy Development Research Group  
• Language for Learning  
• Leadership Initiative for Faith and Education (L.I.F.E.)
• Project on the Next Generation of Teachers  
• READS Lab  
• Refugee REACH  
• The Rowe Lab  
• Transformative Justice Initiative  

ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, snowboarding, pufferfish and a music studio: what happened when i added 20 percent time projects to my syllabus.

Last December, I wrote an article anticipating the addition of 20 percent time projects to my freshman English courses. While I’d read Dan Pink’s “Drive” and appreciated his comments on the importance of autonomy, mastery, and purpose, I was still incredibly anxious about handing a huge amount of time back to students and worried that they might not take it seriously.

Getting students excited about the 20 percent time concept

I thought it only fair to disclose the 20 percent time project on our first day of class, so we started by watching Dan Pink’s TED Talk, “The Puzzle of Motivation,” and discussing the overall requirements of these projects. I did this for two reasons: It would excite students who might be otherwise resistant to a writing course and it would allow those who lacked buy-in the opportunity to transfer to another class.

Our first major assignment was “pitch day,” where students presented the work they planned on doing and had a chance to form groups if they chose. Subsequent writing assignments included journaling after each 20 percent time day to check in. The final student projects were a presentation to the class and a self-evaluation that aligned course objectives with their work.

20 percent time projects generated meaningful, creative student work in diverse areas

The finished projects from my students were as varied as they were. A writing group averaged 6,000 words per member; another student set up a brackish water tank for puffer fish; another researched autism so that he could more fully help his family with his severely autistic sister.

Other students hiked local trails and wrote reflections on them or learned to play an instrument. While it was not required, students consistently articulated ways that they met course objectives during their projects. One student, who took up snowboarding, discussed the deep research in tutorials and industry writing that helped him prepare for his extremely limited time on the slopes.

During presentations, I often heard students communicate that course objectives were important in a tangible, real-world way. One shared the critical thinking and people skills required to balance a budget while setting up a music studio and recording an album with a group of musicians. Yet another student discussed the frustrations of failure and starting over for her crocheting project, and how she had come to realize the importance of good writing to communicate crocheting directions.

Classmates connected as co-learners, helped push each other to take risks

In addition to presenting work that was meaningful to them, there were two other important characteristics I saw in my class cohorts: boldness and connection. They consistently showed a willingness to push through discomfort, take risks, and do it together. These students also were perhaps the most socially connected class I’ve had.

I believe that the early-semester pitch process encouraged students to bond deeply. Discussing topics and passions communicated vulnerability and allowed them to know each other in a way that far exceeds our normal class discussions. More so than usual, I saw students become friends.

Because writing instruction requires this boldness and connectedness, I feel that 20 percent time enhanced student learning in other places as well. Students were, on the whole, more willing to take risks. They also attended class at a far higher rate than students usually do, without the usual end-of-semester attendance drop-off.

Notes for next time: increase coaching and guidance throughout the process

My initial presumption that 20 percent time projects would take minimal intervention on my part was wrong.  Although they don’t need to be managed, students do need clear guidance and coaching during the process.

Some of the biggest challenges I saw this semester can be alleviated by better planning on my part. Pitch day was not completely successful because students didn’t understand its importance. Some students procrastinated or did not take the assignment seriously. Others didn’t dedicate adequate time to their projects throughout the semester.

In an end-of-semester brainstorm session, my students suggested more preparation for pitch day, routine check-ins, and help to ensure that students chose topics about which they were passionate. Students also suggested that clearly communicating the expectation that their project is aligned with course objectives would help them decide how to express their passions in a way that felt meaningful to their learning.

Student: 20 percent time is ‘my favorite’

About a month after the semester started, a colleague reported a most unusual circumstance. A student got onto the elevator with her and was practically vibrating with excitement. My colleague asked her if she was having a good day. “Yes,” she replied. “I have English today, and it’s my favorite: 20 percent time.”

If I’m being honest, I have to completely agree with my student. 20 percent time was my favorite part of the semester, too. After reflecting on our semester and reading over student evaluation comments, I am excited to continue them in my courses.

Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

You may also like to read

• No-Plan Lesson Plans: 20 Percent Time Projects Make Room for Engagement
• Affordable Art Projects for Middle School Classrooms
• 4 Topics for Middle School Biology Projects
• Creative Academic Instruction: Music Resources for the Classroom
• Engaging with Numbers: 3 Challenging 7th Grade Math Projects
• 3 Preschool Music Lesson Plan Ideas and Tips

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Engaging Activities ,  Language Arts ,  Pros and Cons

• Online & Campus Master's in Secondary Educati...
• Master's in Career and Technical Education
• Master's in Social Studies Education & Teachi...

• Our Mission

The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2021

From reframing our notion of “good” schools to mining the magic of expert teachers, here’s a curated list of must-read research from 2021.

It was a year of unprecedented hardship for teachers and school leaders. We pored through hundreds of studies to see if we could follow the trail of exactly what happened: The research revealed a complex portrait of a grueling year during which persistent issues of burnout and mental and physical health impacted millions of educators. Meanwhile, many of the old debates continued: Does paper beat digital? Is project-based learning as effective as direct instruction? How do you define what a “good” school is?

Other studies grabbed our attention, and in a few cases, made headlines. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Columbia University turned artificial intelligence loose on some 1,130 award-winning children’s books in search of invisible patterns of bias. (Spoiler alert: They found some.) Another study revealed why many parents are reluctant to support social and emotional learning in schools—and provided hints about how educators can flip the script.

1. What Parents Fear About SEL (and How to Change Their Minds)

When researchers at the Fordham Institute asked parents to rank phrases associated with social and emotional learning , nothing seemed to add up. The term “social-emotional learning” was very unpopular; parents wanted to steer their kids clear of it. But when the researchers added a simple clause, forming a new phrase—”social-emotional & academic learning”—the program shot all the way up to No. 2 in the rankings.

What gives?

Parents were picking up subtle cues in the list of SEL-related terms that irked or worried them, the researchers suggest. Phrases like “soft skills” and “growth mindset” felt “nebulous” and devoid of academic content. For some, the language felt suspiciously like “code for liberal indoctrination.”

But the study suggests that parents might need the simplest of reassurances to break through the political noise. Removing the jargon, focusing on productive phrases like “life skills,” and relentlessly connecting SEL to academic progress puts parents at ease—and seems to save social and emotional learning in the process.

2. The Secret Management Techniques of Expert Teachers

In the hands of experienced teachers, classroom management can seem almost invisible: Subtle techniques are quietly at work behind the scenes, with students falling into orderly routines and engaging in rigorous academic tasks almost as if by magic. 

That’s no accident, according to new research . While outbursts are inevitable in school settings, expert teachers seed their classrooms with proactive, relationship-building strategies that often prevent misbehavior before it erupts. They also approach discipline more holistically than their less-experienced counterparts, consistently reframing misbehavior in the broader context of how lessons can be more engaging, or how clearly they communicate expectations.

Focusing on the underlying dynamics of classroom behavior—and not on surface-level disruptions—means that expert teachers often look the other way at all the right times, too. Rather than rise to the bait of a minor breach in etiquette, a common mistake of new teachers, they tend to play the long game, asking questions about the origins of misbehavior, deftly navigating the terrain between discipline and student autonomy, and opting to confront misconduct privately when possible.

3. The Surprising Power of Pretesting

Asking students to take a practice test before they’ve even encountered the material may seem like a waste of time—after all, they’d just be guessing.

But new research concludes that the approach, called pretesting, is actually more effective than other typical study strategies. Surprisingly, pretesting even beat out taking practice tests after learning the material, a proven strategy endorsed by cognitive scientists and educators alike. In the study, students who took a practice test before learning the material outperformed their peers who studied more traditionally by 49 percent on a follow-up test, while outperforming students who took practice tests after studying the material by 27 percent.

The researchers hypothesize that the “generation of errors” was a key to the strategy’s success, spurring student curiosity and priming them to “search for the correct answers” when they finally explored the new material—and adding grist to a 2018 study that found that making educated guesses helped students connect background knowledge to new material.

Learning is more durable when students do the hard work of correcting misconceptions, the research suggests, reminding us yet again that being wrong is an important milestone on the road to being right.

4. Confronting an Old Myth About Immigrant Students

Immigrant students are sometimes portrayed as a costly expense to the education system, but new research is systematically dismantling that myth.

In a 2021 study , researchers analyzed over 1.3 million academic and birth records for students in Florida communities, and concluded that the presence of immigrant students actually has “a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students,” raising test scores as the size of the immigrant school population increases. The benefits were especially powerful for low-income students.

While immigrants initially “face challenges in assimilation that may require additional school resources,” the researchers concluded, hard work and resilience may allow them to excel and thus “positively affect exposed U.S.-born students’ attitudes and behavior.” But according to teacher Larry Ferlazzo, the improvements might stem from the fact that having English language learners in classes improves pedagogy , pushing teachers to consider “issues like prior knowledge, scaffolding, and maximizing accessibility.”

5. A Fuller Picture of What a ‘Good’ School Is

It’s time to rethink our definition of what a “good school” is, researchers assert in a study published in late 2020.⁣ That’s because typical measures of school quality like test scores often provide an incomplete and misleading picture, the researchers found.

The study looked at over 150,000 ninth-grade students who attended Chicago public schools and concluded that emphasizing the social and emotional dimensions of learning—relationship-building, a sense of belonging, and resilience, for example—improves high school graduation and college matriculation rates for both high- and low-income students, beating out schools that focus primarily on improving test scores.⁣

“Schools that promote socio-emotional development actually have a really big positive impact on kids,” said lead researcher C. Kirabo Jackson in an interview with Edutopia . “And these impacts are particularly large for vulnerable student populations who don’t tend to do very well in the education system.”

The findings reinforce the importance of a holistic approach to measuring student progress, and are a reminder that schools—and teachers—can influence students in ways that are difficult to measure, and may only materialize well into the future.⁣

6. Teaching Is Learning

One of the best ways to learn a concept is to teach it to someone else. But do you actually have to step into the shoes of a teacher, or does the mere expectation of teaching do the trick?

In a 2021 study , researchers split students into two groups and gave them each a science passage about the Doppler effect—a phenomenon associated with sound and light waves that explains the gradual change in tone and pitch as a car races off into the distance, for example. One group studied the text as preparation for a test; the other was told that they’d be teaching the material to another student.

The researchers never carried out the second half of the activity—students read the passages but never taught the lesson. All of the participants were then tested on their factual recall of the Doppler effect, and their ability to draw deeper conclusions from the reading.

The upshot? Students who prepared to teach outperformed their counterparts in both duration and depth of learning, scoring 9 percent higher on factual recall a week after the lessons concluded, and 24 percent higher on their ability to make inferences. The research suggests that asking students to prepare to teach something—or encouraging them to think “could I teach this to someone else?”—can significantly alter their learning trajectories.

7. A Disturbing Strain of Bias in Kids’ Books

Some of the most popular and well-regarded children’s books—Caldecott and Newbery honorees among them—persistently depict Black, Asian, and Hispanic characters with lighter skin, according to new research .

Using artificial intelligence, researchers combed through 1,130 children’s books written in the last century, comparing two sets of diverse children’s books—one a collection of popular books that garnered major literary awards, the other favored by identity-based awards. The software analyzed data on skin tone, race, age, and gender.

Among the findings: While more characters with darker skin color begin to appear over time, the most popular books—those most frequently checked out of libraries and lining classroom bookshelves—continue to depict people of color in lighter skin tones. More insidiously, when adult characters are “moral or upstanding,” their skin color tends to appear lighter, the study’s lead author, Anjali Aduki,  told The 74 , with some books converting “Martin Luther King Jr.’s chocolate complexion to a light brown or beige.” Female characters, meanwhile, are often seen but not heard.

Cultural representations are a reflection of our values, the researchers conclude: “Inequality in representation, therefore, constitutes an explicit statement of inequality of value.”

8. The Never-Ending ‘Paper Versus Digital’ War

The argument goes like this: Digital screens turn reading into a cold and impersonal task; they’re good for information foraging, and not much more. “Real” books, meanwhile, have a heft and “tactility”  that make them intimate, enchanting—and irreplaceable.

But researchers have often found weak or equivocal evidence for the superiority of reading on paper. While a recent study concluded that paper books yielded better comprehension than e-books when many of the digital tools had been removed, the effect sizes were small. A 2021 meta-analysis further muddies the water: When digital and paper books are “mostly similar,” kids comprehend the print version more readily—but when enhancements like motion and sound “target the story content,” e-books generally have the edge.

Nostalgia is a force that every new technology must eventually confront. There’s plenty of evidence that writing with pen and paper encodes learning more deeply than typing. But new digital book formats come preloaded with powerful tools that allow readers to annotate, look up words, answer embedded questions, and share their thinking with other readers.

We may not be ready to admit it, but these are precisely the kinds of activities that drive deeper engagement, enhance comprehension, and leave us with a lasting memory of what we’ve read. The future of e-reading, despite the naysayers, remains promising.

9. New Research Makes a Powerful Case for PBL

Many classrooms today still look like they did 100 years ago, when students were preparing for factory jobs. But the world’s moved on: Modern careers demand a more sophisticated set of skills—collaboration, advanced problem-solving, and creativity, for example—and those can be difficult to teach in classrooms that rarely give students the time and space to develop those competencies.

Project-based learning (PBL) would seem like an ideal solution. But critics say PBL places too much responsibility on novice learners, ignoring the evidence about the effectiveness of direct instruction and ultimately undermining subject fluency. Advocates counter that student-centered learning and direct instruction can and should coexist in classrooms.

Now two new large-scale studies —encompassing over 6,000 students in 114 diverse schools across the nation—provide evidence that a well-structured, project-based approach boosts learning for a wide range of students.

In the studies, which were funded by Lucas Education Research, a sister division of Edutopia , elementary and high school students engaged in challenging projects that had them designing water systems for local farms, or creating toys using simple household objects to learn about gravity, friction, and force. Subsequent testing revealed notable learning gains—well above those experienced by students in traditional classrooms—and those gains seemed to raise all boats, persisting across socioeconomic class, race, and reading levels.

10. Tracking a Tumultuous Year for Teachers

The Covid-19 pandemic cast a long shadow over the lives of educators in 2021, according to a year’s worth of research.

The average teacher’s workload suddenly “spiked last spring,” wrote the Center for Reinventing Public Education in its January 2021 report, and then—in defiance of the laws of motion—simply never let up. By the fall, a RAND study recorded an astonishing shift in work habits: 24 percent of teachers reported that they were working 56 hours or more per week, compared to 5 percent pre-pandemic.

The vaccine was the promised land, but when it arrived nothing seemed to change. In an April 2021 survey  conducted four months after the first vaccine was administered in New York City, 92 percent of teachers said their jobs were more stressful than prior to the pandemic, up from 81 percent in an earlier survey.

It wasn’t just the length of the work days; a close look at the research reveals that the school system’s failure to adjust expectations was ruinous. It seemed to start with the obligations of hybrid teaching, which surfaced in Edutopia ’s coverage of overseas school reopenings. In June 2020, well before many U.S. schools reopened, we reported that hybrid teaching was an emerging problem internationally, and warned that if the “model is to work well for any period of time,” schools must “recognize and seek to reduce the workload for teachers.” Almost eight months later, a 2021 RAND study identified hybrid teaching as a primary source of teacher stress in the U.S., easily outpacing factors like the health of a high-risk loved one.

New and ever-increasing demands for tech solutions put teachers on a knife’s edge. In several important 2021 studies, researchers concluded that teachers were being pushed to adopt new technology without the “resources and equipment necessary for its correct didactic use.” Consequently, they were spending more than 20 hours a week adapting lessons for online use, and experiencing an unprecedented erosion of the boundaries between their work and home lives, leading to an unsustainable “always on” mentality. When it seemed like nothing more could be piled on—when all of the lights were blinking red—the federal government restarted standardized testing .

Change will be hard; many of the pathologies that exist in the system now predate the pandemic. But creating strict school policies that separate work from rest, eliminating the adoption of new tech tools without proper supports, distributing surveys regularly to gauge teacher well-being, and above all listening to educators to identify and confront emerging problems might be a good place to start, if the research can be believed.

The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 94 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

Education is a human right, a powerful driver of development, and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability. It delivers large, consistent returns in terms of income, and is the most important factor to ensure equity and inclusion.

For individuals, education promotes employment, earnings, health, and poverty reduction. Globally, there is a  9% increase in hourly earnings for every extra year of schooling . For societies, it drives long-term economic growth, spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.  Education is further a powerful catalyst to climate action through widespread behavior change and skilling for green transitions.

Developing countries have made tremendous progress in getting children into the classroom and more children worldwide are now in school. But learning is not guaranteed, as the  2018 World Development Report  (WDR) stressed.

Making smart and effective investments in people’s education is critical for developing the human capital that will end extreme poverty. At the core of this strategy is the need to tackle the learning crisis, put an end to  Learning Poverty , and help youth acquire the advanced cognitive, socioemotional, technical and digital skills they need to succeed in today’s world. 

In low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in  Learning Poverty  (that is, the proportion of 10-year-old children that are unable to read and understand a short age-appropriate text) increased from 57% before the pandemic to an estimated  70%  in 2022.

However, learning is in crisis. More than 70 million more people were pushed into poverty during the COVID pandemic, a billion children lost a year of school , and three years later the learning losses suffered have not been recouped .  If a child cannot read with comprehension by age 10, they are unlikely to become fluent readers. They will fail to thrive later in school and will be unable to power their careers and economies once they leave school.

The effects of the pandemic are expected to be long-lasting. Analysis has already revealed deep losses, with international reading scores declining from 2016 to 2021 by more than a year of schooling.  These losses may translate to a 0.68 percentage point in global GDP growth.  The staggering effects of school closures reach beyond learning. This generation of children could lose a combined total of  US$21 trillion in lifetime earnings  in present value or the equivalent of 17% of today’s global GDP – a sharp rise from the 2021 estimate of a US$17 trillion loss. 

Action is urgently needed now – business as usual will not suffice to heal the scars of the pandemic and will not accelerate progress enough to meet the ambitions of SDG 4. We are urging governments to implement ambitious and aggressive Learning Acceleration Programs to get children back to school, recover lost learning, and advance progress by building better, more equitable and resilient education systems.

Last Updated: Mar 25, 2024

The World Bank’s global education strategy is centered on ensuring learning happens – for everyone, everywhere. Our vision is to ensure that everyone can achieve her or his full potential with access to a quality education and lifelong learning. To reach this, we are helping countries build foundational skills like literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills – the building blocks for all other learning. From early childhood to tertiary education and beyond – we help children and youth acquire the skills they need to thrive in school, the labor market and throughout their lives.

Investing in the world’s most precious resource – people – is paramount to ending poverty on a livable planet.  Our experience across more than 100 countries bears out this robust connection between human capital, quality of life, and economic growth: when countries strategically invest in people and the systems designed to protect and build human capital at scale, they unlock the wealth of nations and the potential of everyone.

Building on this, the World Bank supports resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. We do this by generating and disseminating evidence, ensuring alignment with policymaking processes, and bridging the gap between research and practice.

The World Bank is the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries, with a portfolio of about $26 billion in 94 countries including IBRD, IDA and Recipient-Executed Trust Funds. IDA operations comprise 62% of the education portfolio.

The investment in FCV settings has increased dramatically and now accounts for 26% of our portfolio.

World Bank projects reach at least 425 million students -one-third of students in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank’s Approach to Education

Five interrelated pillars of a well-functioning education system underpin the World Bank’s education policy approach:

• Learners are prepared and motivated to learn;
• Teachers are prepared, skilled, and motivated to facilitate learning and skills acquisition;
• Learning resources (including education technology) are available, relevant, and used to improve teaching and learning;
• Schools are safe and inclusive; and
• Education Systems are well-managed, with good implementation capacity and adequate financing.

The Bank is already helping governments design and implement cost-effective programs and tools to build these pillars.

Our Principles:

• We pursue systemic reform supported by political commitment to learning for all children. 
• We focus on equity and inclusion through a progressive path toward achieving universal access to quality education, including children and young adults in fragile or conflict affected areas , those in marginalized and rural communities,  girls and women , displaced populations,  students with disabilities , and other vulnerable groups.
• We focus on results and use evidence to keep improving policy by using metrics to guide improvements.   
• We want to ensure financial commitment commensurate with what is needed to provide basic services to all. 
• We invest wisely in technology so that education systems embrace and learn to harness technology to support their learning objectives.   

Laying the groundwork for the future

Country challenges vary, but there is a menu of options to build forward better, more resilient, and equitable education systems.

Countries are facing an education crisis that requires a two-pronged approach: first, supporting actions to recover lost time through remedial and accelerated learning; and, second, building on these investments for a more equitable, resilient, and effective system.

Recovering from the learning crisis must be a political priority, backed with adequate financing and the resolve to implement needed reforms.  Domestic financing for education over the last two years has not kept pace with the need to recover and accelerate learning. Across low- and lower-middle-income countries, the  average share of education in government budgets fell during the pandemic , and in 2022 it remained below 2019 levels.

The best chance for a better future is to invest in education and make sure each dollar is put toward improving learning.  In a time of fiscal pressure, protecting spending that yields long-run gains – like spending on education – will maximize impact.  We still need more and better funding for education.  Closing the learning gap will require increasing the level, efficiency, and equity of education spending—spending smarter is an imperative.

• Education technology  can be a powerful tool to implement these actions by supporting teachers, children, principals, and parents; expanding accessible digital learning platforms, including radio/ TV / Online learning resources; and using data to identify and help at-risk children, personalize learning, and improve service delivery.

Looking ahead

We must seize this opportunity  to reimagine education in bold ways. Together, we can build forward better more equitable, effective, and resilient education systems for the world’s children and youth.

Accelerating Improvements

Supporting countries in establishing time-bound learning targets and a focused education investment plan, outlining actions and investments geared to achieve these goals.

Launched in 2020, the  Accelerator Program  works with a set of countries to channel investments in education and to learn from each other. The program coordinates efforts across partners to ensure that the countries in the program show improvements in foundational skills at scale over the next three to five years. These investment plans build on the collective work of multiple partners, and leverage the latest evidence on what works, and how best to plan for implementation.  Countries such as Brazil (the state of Ceará) and Kenya have achieved dramatic reductions in learning poverty over the past decade at scale, providing useful lessons, even as they seek to build on their successes and address remaining and new challenges.  

Universalizing Foundational Literacy

Readying children for the future by supporting acquisition of foundational skills – which are the gateway to other skills and subjects.

The  Literacy Policy Package (LPP)   consists of interventions focused specifically on promoting acquisition of reading proficiency in primary school. These include assuring political and technical commitment to making all children literate; ensuring effective literacy instruction by supporting teachers; providing quality, age-appropriate books; teaching children first in the language they speak and understand best; and fostering children’s oral language abilities and love of books and reading.

Advancing skills through TVET and Tertiary

Ensuring that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and supporting links to employment.

Tertiary education and skills systems are a driver of major development agendas, including human capital, climate change, youth and women’s empowerment, and jobs and economic transformation. A comprehensive skill set to succeed in the 21st century labor market consists of foundational and higher order skills, socio-emotional skills, specialized skills, and digital skills. Yet most countries continue to struggle in delivering on the promise of skills development. 

The World Bank is supporting countries through efforts that address key challenges including improving access and completion, adaptability, quality, relevance, and efficiency of skills development programs. Our approach is via multiple channels including projects, global goods, as well as the Tertiary Education and Skills Program . Our recent reports including Building Better Formal TVET Systems and STEERing Tertiary Education provide a way forward for how to improve these critical systems.

Addressing Climate Change

Mainstreaming climate education and investing in green skills, research and innovation, and green infrastructure to spur climate action and foster better preparedness and resilience to climate shocks.

Our approach recognizes that education is critical for achieving effective, sustained climate action. At the same time, climate change is adversely impacting education outcomes. Investments in education can play a huge role in building climate resilience and advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change education gives young people greater awareness of climate risks and more access to tools and solutions for addressing these risks and managing related shocks. Technical and vocational education and training can also accelerate a green economic transformation by fostering green skills and innovation. Greening education infrastructure can help mitigate the impact of heat, pollution, and extreme weather on learning, while helping address climate change. 

Examples of this work are projects in Nigeria (life skills training for adolescent girls), Vietnam (fostering relevant scientific research) , and Bangladesh (constructing and retrofitting schools to serve as cyclone shelters).

Strengthening Measurement Systems

Enabling countries to gather and evaluate information on learning and its drivers more efficiently and effectively.

The World Bank supports initiatives to help countries effectively build and strengthen their measurement systems to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. Examples of this work include:

(1) The  Global Education Policy Dashboard (GEPD) : This tool offers a strong basis for identifying priorities for investment and policy reforms that are suited to each country context by focusing on the three dimensions of practices, policies, and politics.

• Highlights gaps between what the evidence suggests is effective in promoting learning and what is happening in practice in each system; and
• Allows governments to track progress as they act to close the gaps.

The GEPD has been implemented in 13 education systems already – Peru, Rwanda, Jordan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sierra Leone, Niger, Gabon, Jordan and Chad – with more expected by the end of 2024.

(2)  Learning Assessment Platform (LeAP) : LeAP is a one-stop shop for knowledge, capacity-building tools, support for policy dialogue, and technical staff expertise to support student achievement measurement and national assessments for better learning.

Supporting Successful Teachers

Helping systems develop the right selection, incentives, and support to the professional development of teachers.

Currently, the World Bank Education Global Practice has over 160 active projects supporting over 18 million teachers worldwide, about a third of the teacher population in low- and middle-income countries. In 12 countries alone, these projects cover 16 million teachers, including all primary school teachers in Ethiopia and Turkey, and over 80% in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

A World Bank-developed classroom observation tool, Teach, was designed to capture the quality of teaching in low- and middle-income countries. It is now 3.6 million students.

While Teach helps identify patterns in teacher performance, Coach leverages these insights to support teachers to improve their teaching practice through hands-on in-service teacher professional development (TPD).

Our recent report on Making Teacher Policy Work proposes a practical framework to uncover the black box of effective teacher policy and discusses the factors that enable their scalability and sustainability.

 Supporting Education Finance Systems

Strengthening country financing systems to mobilize resources for education and make better use of their investments in education.

Our approach is to bring together multi-sectoral expertise to engage with ministries of education and finance and other stakeholders to develop and implement effective and efficient public financial management systems; build capacity to monitor and evaluate education spending, identify financing bottlenecks, and develop interventions to strengthen financing systems; build the evidence base on global spending patterns and the magnitude and causes of spending inefficiencies; and develop diagnostic tools as public goods to support country efforts.

Working in Fragile, Conflict, and Violent (FCV) Contexts

The massive and growing global challenge of having so many children living in conflict and violent situations requires a response at the same scale and scope. Our education engagement in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) context, which stands at US$5.35 billion, has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the ever-increasing importance of the FCV agenda in education. Indeed, these projects now account for more than 25% of the World Bank education portfolio.

Education is crucial to minimizing the effects of fragility and displacement on the welfare of youth and children in the short-term and preventing the emergence of violent conflict in the long-term. 

Support to Countries Throughout the Education Cycle

Our support to countries covers the entire learning cycle, to help shape resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. 

The ongoing  Supporting  Egypt  Education Reform project , 2018-2025, supports transformational reforms of the Egyptian education system, by improving teaching and learning conditions in public schools. The World Bank has invested $500 million in the project focused on increasing access to quality kindergarten, enhancing the capacity of teachers and education leaders, developing a reliable student assessment system, and introducing the use of modern technology for teaching and learning. Specifically, the share of Egyptian 10-year-old students, who could read and comprehend at the global minimum proficiency level, increased to 45 percent in 2021.

In  Nigeria , the $75 million  Edo  Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation (EdoBESST)  project, running from 2020-2024, is focused on improving teaching and learning in basic education. Under the project, which covers 97 percent of schools in the state, there is a strong focus on incorporating digital technologies for teachers. They were equipped with handheld tablets with structured lesson plans for their classes. Their coaches use classroom observation tools to provide individualized feedback. Teacher absence has reduced drastically because of the initiative. Over 16,000 teachers were trained through the project, and the introduction of technology has also benefited students.

Through the $235 million  School Sector Development Program  in  Nepal  (2017-2022), the number of children staying in school until Grade 12 nearly tripled, and the number of out-of-school children fell by almost seven percent. During the pandemic, innovative approaches were needed to continue education. Mobile phone penetration is high in the country. More than four in five households in Nepal have mobile phones. The project supported an educational service that made it possible for children with phones to connect to local radio that broadcast learning programs.

From 2017-2023, the $50 million  Strengthening of State Universities  in  Chile  project has made strides to improve quality and equity at state universities. The project helped reduce dropout: the third-year dropout rate fell by almost 10 percent from 2018-2022, keeping more students in school.

The World Bank’s first  Program-for-Results financing in education  was through a $202 million project in  Tanzania , that ran from 2013-2021. The project linked funding to results and aimed to improve education quality. It helped build capacity, and enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in the education sector. Through the project, learning outcomes significantly improved alongside an unprecedented expansion of access to education for children in Tanzania. From 2013-2019, an additional 1.8 million students enrolled in primary schools. In 2019, the average reading speed for Grade 2 students rose to 22.3 words per minute, up from 17.3 in 2017. The project laid the foundation for the ongoing $500 million  BOOST project , which supports over 12 million children to enroll early, develop strong foundational skills, and complete a quality education.

The $40 million  Cambodia  Secondary Education Improvement project , which ran from 2017-2022, focused on strengthening school-based management, upgrading teacher qualifications, and building classrooms in Cambodia, to improve learning outcomes, and reduce student dropout at the secondary school level. The project has directly benefited almost 70,000 students in 100 target schools, and approximately 2,000 teachers and 600 school administrators received training.

The World Bank is co-financing the $152.80 million  Yemen  Restoring Education and Learning Emergency project , running from 2020-2024, which is implemented through UNICEF, WFP, and Save the Children. It is helping to maintain access to basic education for many students, improve learning conditions in schools, and is working to strengthen overall education sector capacity. In the time of crisis, the project is supporting teacher payments and teacher training, school meals, school infrastructure development, and the distribution of learning materials and school supplies. To date, almost 600,000 students have benefited from these interventions.

The $87 million  Providing an Education of Quality in  Haiti  project supported approximately 380 schools in the Southern region of Haiti from 2016-2023. Despite a highly challenging context of political instability and recurrent natural disasters, the project successfully supported access to education for students. The project provided textbooks, fresh meals, and teacher training support to 70,000 students, 3,000 teachers, and 300 school directors. It gave tuition waivers to 35,000 students in 118 non-public schools. The project also repaired 19 national schools damaged by the 2021 earthquake, which gave 5,500 students safe access to their schools again.

In 2013, just 5% of the poorest households in  Uzbekistan  had children enrolled in preschools. Thanks to the  Improving Pre-Primary and General Secondary Education Project , by July 2019, around 100,000 children will have benefitted from the half-day program in 2,420 rural kindergartens, comprising around 49% of all preschool educational institutions, or over 90% of rural kindergartens in the country.

In addition to working closely with governments in our client countries, the World Bank also works at the global, regional, and local levels with a range of technical partners, including foundations, non-profit organizations, bilaterals, and other multilateral organizations. Some examples of our most recent global partnerships include:

UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  Coalition for Foundational Learning

The World Bank is working closely with UNICEF, UNESCO, FCDO, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the  Coalition for Foundational Learning  to advocate and provide technical support to ensure foundational learning.  The World Bank works with these partners to promote and endorse the  Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning , a global network of countries committed to halving the global share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 by 2030.

Australian Aid, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Echida Giving, FCDO, German Cooperation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, LEGO Foundation, Porticus, USAID: Early Learning Partnership

The Early Learning Partnership (ELP) is a multi-donor trust fund, housed at the World Bank.  ELP leverages World Bank strengths—a global presence, access to policymakers and strong technical analysis—to improve early learning opportunities and outcomes for young children around the world.

We help World Bank teams and countries get the information they need to make the case to invest in Early Childhood Development (ECD), design effective policies and deliver impactful programs. At the country level, ELP grants provide teams with resources for early seed investments that can generate large financial commitments through World Bank finance and government resources. At the global level, ELP research and special initiatives work to fill knowledge gaps, build capacity and generate public goods.

UNESCO, UNICEF:  Learning Data Compact

UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank have joined forces to close the learning data gaps that still exist and that preclude many countries from monitoring the quality of their education systems and assessing if their students are learning. The three organizations have agreed to a  Learning Data Compact , a commitment to ensure that all countries, especially low-income countries, have at least one quality measure of learning by 2025, supporting coordinated efforts to strengthen national assessment systems.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS):   Learning Poverty Indicator

Aimed at measuring and urging attention to foundational literacy as a prerequisite to achieve SDG4, this partnership was launched in 2019 to help countries strengthen their learning assessment systems, better monitor what students are learning in internationally comparable ways and improve the breadth and quality of global data on education.

FCDO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  EdTech Hub

Supported by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the EdTech Hub is aimed at improving the quality of ed-tech investments. The Hub launched a rapid response Helpdesk service to provide just-in-time advisory support to 70 low- and middle-income countries planning education technology and remote learning initiatives.

MasterCard Foundation

Our Tertiary Education and Skills  global program, launched with support from the Mastercard Foundation, aims to prepare youth and adults for the future of work and society by improving access to relevant, quality, equitable reskilling and post-secondary education opportunities.  It is designed to reframe, reform, and rebuild tertiary education and skills systems for the digital and green transformation.

Bridging the AI divide: Breaking down barriers to ensure women’s leadership and participation in the Fifth Industrial Revolution

Common challenges and tailored solutions: How policymakers are strengthening early learning systems across the world

Compulsory education boosts learning outcomes and climate action

Areas of focus.

Data & Measurement

Early Childhood Development

Financing Education

Foundational Learning

Fragile, Conflict & Violent Contexts

Girls’ Education

Inclusive Education

Skills Development

Technology (EdTech)  

Tertiary Education

Initiatives

• Show More +
• Tertiary Education and Skills Program
• Service Delivery Indicators
• Evoke: Transforming education to empower youth
• Global Education Policy Dashboard
• Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel
• Show Less -

Collapse and Recovery: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded Human Capital and What to Do About It

BROCHURES & FACT SHEETS

Flyer: Education Factsheet - May 2024

Publication: Realizing Education's Promise: A World Bank Retrospective – August 2023

Flyer: Education and Climate Change - November 2022

Brochure: Learning Losses - October 2022

STAY CONNECTED

Human Development Topics

Around the bank group.

Find out what the Bank Group's branches are doing in education

Global Education Newsletter - April 2024

What's happening in the World Bank Education Global Practice? Read to learn more.

Human Capital Project

The Human Capital Project is a global effort to accelerate more and better investments in people for greater equity and economic growth.

Impact Evaluations

Research that measures the impact of education policies to improve education in low and middle income countries.

Education Videos

Watch our latest videos featuring our projects across the world

Additional Resources

Education Finance

Higher Education

Digital Technologies

Education Data & Measurement

Education in Fragile, Conflict & Violence Contexts

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

We are teachers, creative thinkers, and problem-solvers who connect industry to the classroom using a signature combination of expertise, relationships, and know-how.

• Relevant, engaging professional development events
• Problem-based, hands-on curriculum that meets state standards and relates to real-world science
• Relationships with industry leaders; career and skills information
• Relationships with teacher leaders who are experts regarding our resources

Support teachers and reach students  →

See our great workshops, curriculum, and resources  →

EducationProjects.org workshops

With our partners, we conduct workshops for educators throughout the calendar year. Learn more about our teacher engagement and check out upcoming events here .

• Hispanoamérica
• Work at ArchDaily
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Architecture News

Art, Soul and Education: 20 Award-Winning Projects with a Brilliant Touch 

• Written by Antonia Piñeiro
• Published on August 23, 2021

The world’s architects and interior designers do not simply design space. They take existing space and redefine and reinterpret it—along with its history, its surroundings and its culture. If the designer succeeds in capturing the very essence of a place, indoors or outdoors, and in filling it with new life, it can be described as outstanding design. And outstanding designs have won the iF Design Award again in 2021. Be they spaces for discovery or remembrance, for learning or for prayer, the iF Design Award has gone across categories and types of building to architectural and interior design projects that could hardly be more different, yet have “ The CreatiFe Power of Design ” in common. But what does that mean?

The Past Creates the Future

Modern interior designers use the virtuoso language of design to take places of art or teaching to a new level. The designs are inspired by the history or tradition of a place without allowing themselves to be confined by it. Quite the opposite: inspired by the past, they reinterpret it into forward-looking art and culture. Others part entirely with old patterns in order to gain a totally new understanding of space that always used to be the same space, be it a high roof or a deep underground space, an old ruin, an ordinary living room or a new educational facility.

Designs that have won the iF Design Award 2021 map a fascinating bandwidth of creative options in architecture and interior design. Digital installations and the visionary use of light in interior design play a key role. You will find all winners on the website or in the iF DESIGN app .

The following iF Design Award winners are textbook examples of how the language of art, soul and education can achieve its full effect in architecture and interior design—and thereby establish a connection between people and places.

Illuminated Impact

Prism is actually an unspectacular installation during the day. At night, however, the spectacular impact of this project is capable of revitalizing a forgotten island. A beacon in a sea of memories, a sensual art installation with light and prisms, this installation is worth taking a ferry to Sarushima to see—and worthy of an iF gold award. The Prism installation was created at the SENSE ISLAND art event on Sarushima Island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, by Hakuten Corporation for Yokosuka City.

Light has the power to transform spaces from times past into new art, as at The Linen Gallery in Zhejiang , an old linen factory in which a combination of artificial and natural light creates a new kind of architecture. Or in the art project Light Up The 13 Layer Remains , which sheds light on the old history of a long since ruined copper refinery in the ShuiNan Cave as an important part of the cultural landscape. This impressive power of light to convey messages and moods is also used by The DNA of Light , a platform for new art.

  A Piece of Landscape Architecture as Poetry

The OSOL iF gold award-winning permanent art pavilion was designed by SOAP Design Studio for the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and Hwaseong City. It was installed on the west coast of South Korea. Over 1,000 pine trees have grown alongside the tidal beach for more than 100 years. Inspired by the reflection of light on the sea, OSOL reflects the surrounding colors and allows visitors to gain a new perspective on the relationship between man and nature.

Perfect Space for Learning

Cheonan is the Hyundai Motor Company’s Global Learning Center , a specialized training facility for mechanics. The problem was ventilation, noise and traffic circulation with cars and trucks on site. Designed by Hyundai together with BCHO Partners, the double-skin expanded metal façade system allows for integrated yet separate vehicle passage, well-ventilated classrooms, and quiet, naturally-lit interior spaces. A striking balance of visually stunning architecture and quality interior facilities.

A Church for the People

Gospel is a church located in a city by the sea. The exterior is shaped like a Chinese-style screen; twelve pillars are designed not only to present the feature of strong wind but also to symbolize the Twelve Tribes of Israel. As the chosen people, the Twelve Tribes of Israel play an important role in Christianity. To establish the relationship between people and the church, Secure Stone Architectural Space Planning merged the above elements into the design for the Shuilin Church.

Senior Connection

Located in the center of the city of Porto, the Senior University designed by Joaquim Portela Arquitetos is an extension of a new green area in the city. It is a university with student accommodation developed on rugged terrain with a difference in height of 25 meters between the two streets that it faces. The buildings resolve these differences in levels and allow fluid communication inside and between the external squares that interconnect with the city and the new park—even for people with reduced mobility.

Enjoying Life and Architecture

Light Gallery by SCD Architecture Design is a multi-functional center both for property sales and public commerce. The owners wanted to create a gallery with a restaurant, bakery, flower shop, coffee shop, children’s activity center, fitness studio, and mini-cinema. Users can enjoy the sunshine and the mountain views. The experience of walking along the corridor and stairs is intended to resemble climbing a mountain. Using brilliant architectural language, it underscores the relevance of internal and external space construction.

Wave in the City

‘ WAVE ’ is a public media art installation that expresses a realistic wave constantly rushing through an L-shaped LED screen, 80m in width and 20m in height. Created by d'strict holdings and CJ POWERCAST, the large LED screen is an advertising medium, but it has the character of a public good. The designers wanted to provide comfort through public media for people who are tired of Covid-19. They selected a scene of a wave rushing in the middle of the city, a place remote from nature.

Eternal Nature

Arte Museum is Korea’s largest immersive media art exhibition built in what used to be a factory manufacturing audio speakers. The architects from d'strict holdings tried to express materials and spaces of nature through media artworks. Visitors can feel a sense of comfort from virtual nature beyond time and space conjured up by projection mapping and mirror reflection. All art spaces are designed to provide a completely immersive experience through impressive visuals, sensuous sounds, and fragrances.

A Designer’s Paradise

Shanhai Art Museum is not only a place for art exhibitions but also a series of scenes, connections, cultures, and more. The lighting, artwork, space music, furniture and logo systems designed by Matrix Interior Design for YANGO Group are all extracted from natural motifs and elements of local geography. Focusing on the theme “Dream as a Horse,” it uses deconstruction, restructuring and other design techniques to naturally integrate the indoors and outdoors.

Revelation of Times

Times China, an enterprise involved in China’s urbanization, has launched a series of commemorative activities on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, in particular the creation of the Times Pavilion designed by Sangu Design. Based on the interpretation of the Times China brand, the designer puts forward the spatial concept of revelation and extracts the three keywords space, matter, and energy, generating a unique design response to this spatial concept.

A Remarkable Collection

The Private Fish Maw Museum is located in Shoutou City, China. With the vision to communicate the culture and value of fish maws, Shantou Zhuang Shi Xiang Ji Caterin entrusted Jingu Phoenix Space with creating a space to display his collection of aged fish maws (also known as swim bladders). The designers deconstructed the spatial functions via architectural languages and adopted gray as the main color tone to better highlight the gold-hued aged fish maws that carry memories of the past.

Spaces Redefined

Capturing the true soul of a place and transforming it into an artistic design is worthy of an iF Design Award . It matters not whether it is an artistic living room like the Artistic Living Space , a cinema rich in contrast like the OSCAR Cinema or a trade fair stand that brings a brand to life like Plus Minus Zero . What matters is to see the space as a whole and to reinterpret it in its deeper essence. The Roof Top Orchestra – a Garden to Play Sound , proves that this rule applies on the otherwise unused rooftops of Tokyo. No less impressive, but at a much lower level, is the Hongje Yuyeon project, which as part of the ‘Seoul is Museum’ project makes artistic underground space accessible to the public. What all these architectural ideas have in common is their holistic view of the needs of people in interaction with their surroundings.

Image gallery

• Sustainability

想阅读文章的中文版本吗?

2021 iF设计奖获奖作品，室内建筑艺术科技多领域的创新

You've started following your first account, did you know.

You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.

• Search for: Search
• Get Free Newsletters

New $90 Million Project to Create Digital Research Hub Focused on K-12 Education

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)

The National Science Foundation has awarded Rice University $90 million to build what is being described as a first-of-its-kind education research hub that will leverage data from an array  of major digital learning platforms currently serving tens of millions of students. 

The university recently announced the investment as its largest ever federal research grant. OpenStax at Rice, a major publisher of open education resources, will build the research and development hub known as SafeInsights .

The project will focus on producing “research-informed insights about teaching and learning for educators, institutions and learning platforms to use to create tailored programs, pedagogies and policies that will equip learners to thrive.”

“Just like there are bigger telescopes that let astronomers see deeper into the night, SafeInsights’ goal is to have this large student population that will enable researchers to see deeper into the student learning experience,” Slavinsky said in an interview. 

The SafeInsights hub will take five years to build, he said, with early research projects b eginning in 16 to 18 months, and full-scale research operations starting in 2029. 

School districts’ commitment to seeking and using research-based educational strategies is uneven at best. Many district officials complain that academic and other scientifically based research is too abstract, disconnected from their work, and outdated to be of practical use in their decision-making.

When surveyed recently by EdWeek Market Brief on what sorts of research they value most when choosing products and services, district and school leaders were much more likely to point to data on student outcomes, or product usage data than they were rigorous, experimental research.

Data Security in Focus 

At $90 million, the award is NSF’s largest investment in research and development infrastructure for education at a national scale, the university said.

In the past, education research has been hampered by small study groups and short time frames, but the recent boom in digital learning can provide researchers with a plethora of data needed to better understand academic outcomes, Slavinsky said. 

SafeInsights’ goal is to have this large student population that will enable researchers to see deeper into the student learning experience. J.P. Slavinsky, Executive Director, SafeInsights

And research will not be limited to only STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) areas. Schools, education companies, and researchers participating in SafeInsights will bring their own research agenda, Slavinsky said.

Protecting student data is a major concern within school districts, particularly as  schools’ and students’ reliance on technology  has steadily grown.

The data collected as part of the new project will remain secure, Slavinsky said. No student information will be revealed to researchers. 

Instead, researchers will submit their inquiries to SafeInsights, and the research hub will have the data in question analyzed where it is originally stored — by schools or on a digital platform — and provide researchers with aggregate results. 

The research and development project will be a central hub for 80 partners and collaborating institutions. That number is expected to grow, Slavinsky said. 

“One of the great things about SafeInsights is that it is very scalable,” he said. “And we want to build this community, so we can get a better and better picture of the students and the teachers we’re trying to help.” 

Follow  EdWeek Market Brief  on Twitter  @EdMarketBrief  or connect with us on  LinkedIn .

Image credit Stockyarder/DigitalVision/Getty

• When Districts Say They Value ‘Research,’ What Do They Mean?
• Need a Partner to Research Your Product? Here Are 5 Questions to Ask
• The Bar for Evidence That Education Companies Are Asked to Meet
• What’s the Value of Research to School Districts, and Education Companies?

Most Popular

• IXL Learning Faces Lawsuit Over Claims of Violating Children’s Data Privacy May 23, 2024
• Texas District Needs PD Across K-12; N.J. System Seeks Assessment, Data System May 21, 2024

Related Posts

Teachers want better ed-tech science tools. will the market provide them, unmet needs in special ed. are the focus of new ed-tech grants, k-12 dealmaking: ebix buys stake in smartclass; newschools unveils latest cohort, schedule a tour.

Username or Email address *

Remember me

Lost your password?

• World Top 20 Project Network
• Global Movement
• Illiteracy Rates
• Out of School Children
• World Poverty Rate
• Education Data Base
• Global Universities Rankings
• The Global Academic Awards (GAA)
• Education is Hope
• The World Football Weekly Rankings
• World Football Compassion Cup
• FIFA’s Social Responsibility Initiative
• Sports and Education Grant

The World Top 20 Project is an international project aimed to serve and protect children around the world by ensuring they have access to quality education in a safe and nurturing environment through community outreach, organizational and institutional partnership, and program development.

To ensure safe learning environments for every child, we are creating an international education database that will help us monitor the progress of set goals for over 200 nations until 2030.

Annual International Survey – How would you improve your nation’s education system?

Organizations Around the World

The 2020 Education Rankings

College Information Center

News From Around the World

World Football Clubs Weekly Rankings

IOE - Faculty of Education and Society

• Departments and centres
• Innovation and enterprise
• Teacher Education College

UCL Knowledge Lab celebrates its 20th anniversary

15 May 2024

Throughout 2024 the UCL Knowledge Lab, one of the world’s leading centres in human learning, media and technology, is celebrating its 20-year history of innovative, interdisciplinary research.

The Lab was established in 2004 as the London Knowledge Lab, founded by Professor Richard Noss , part of a collaboration between educators from IOE – then known as the Institute of Education – and computer scientists from Birkbeck, University of London. Initial funding came from the UK Government Science Research Investment Fund. 

The Lab is a research laboratory with a focus on digital media and technologies, bringing together experts across various disciplines and backgrounds to reduce social barriers to knowledge. 

Now with UCL as its current home, the Lab’s work revolves around key research themes:

• Technology and human learning, 
• Technology, body and cognition,
• Technology, communication and knowledge,
• Technology, culture and society,
• AI and education, and
• Media arts and play.

The Lab’s legacy is based around two decades of interdisciplinary research, with funders such as UKRI, ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC, Leverhulme, and the EU among others, generating books, articles and policy papers. 

Their impact exchanges with industry and public organisations have led to the design of award-winning digital artefacts, including apps, games, learning designs, media and art.  

The UCL Knowledge Lab is based at Emerald Street in High Holborn, London. It is led by Professor Allison Littlejohn (Director) and Professor John Potter (Associate Director). 

It hosts around 70 experts from diverse fields and comprises over 400 students across the Master’s and Undergraduate levels, over 100 PhD students, and a network of global alumni who have made meaningful contributions to education, technology and media. 

The Lab is also home to the Researching Media Arts and Play (ReMAP) Centre, whose research collaborations include work with the British Film Institute and the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Professor Potter says, “I first joined the Knowledge Lab as a continuing doctoral student when it opened 20 years ago, and I’ve been here ever since. I have always enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature of the lab, which reflects the vision of Richard Noss as founder. 

“We have a great team across all disciplines and I am really proud of the teaching and research of colleagues in ReMAP, the centre within a centre, researching media, arts and play through the years, and developing innovative MA and BA programmes and working with students in doctoral supervision, many of whom have come right through to work as staff here. It’s great to be a part of the Lab at its 20th year celebrations.” 

The Lab’s 20-year anniversary celebrations include series of events, such as:

• The book launch of ‘Online Learning Futures: An Evidence-Based Vision for Global Professional Collaboration on Sustainability’ by Dr Eileen Kennedy and Professor Diana Laurillard in January 2024;
• A three-day AI and Education event in March 2024 exploring the role of AI, part of AI UK Fringe from the Alan Turing Institute; and
• Professor Potter’s inaugural professorial lecture, ‘ Things worth knowing: Participatory Research with Children on Media Cultures and Play ,’ which explored children’s lived experiences and their engagement with media cultures and play, in April 2024.

Professor Littlejohn says, “It’s thrilling we are now in the 20th year of the Knowledge Lab. Over the last two decades we have worked with organisations worldwide to reduce social barriers associated with human learning, technologies and media cultures. Our success has been achieved largely by extending beyond research and by working with others in ways that address these barriers. 

“The Lab is now regarded widely as a leading research centre, bringing together insights from across diverse fields, and we aim to showcase how we will extend our work over the next ten years.”

• UCL Knowledge Lab
• Research in Media Arts and Play (ReMAP)
• Department of Culture, Communication and Media

Close-up of UCL Knowledge Lab polytrope. Credit: IOE Communications.

Related News

Related events, related case studies, related research projects, press and media enquiries.

UCL Media Relations +44 (0)7747 565 056

A Guide to Special Education Terms

• Share article

The number of students in special education has increased steadily in the last four decades , with parents more readily seeking additional support and more students being diagnosed with conditions, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder.

In the wake of the pandemic, though, districts struggle to hire and—more importantly—keep their special education teachers, who are often beleaguered by stressful working conditions and a lack of resources.

Even as the field shifts to address workforce shortages, with some states considering extra pay for special education and others eyeing how artificial intelligence could lessen the burden of increased workloads, students with disabilities make up roughly 13 percent of the school population, said Natasha Strassfeld, an assistant professor in the department of special education at the University of Texas at Austin.

These are key terms educators should know.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , or IDEA , is a federal law that establishes the rights of students with disabilities and their families.

First passed in 1975 and most recently reauthorized in 2004, the act provides grant funding to states that agree to the federal government’s vision for educating students with disabilities, said Strassfeld.

Students must be identified, evaluated, and deemed as IDEA eligible for the state to use federal money to educate that child. There are 13 categories under which a student could be eligible, including physical and intellectual disabilities.

There are about seven million students served under IDEA, said Strassfeld.

An Individualized Education Program , or IEP , is a legally binding contract between a school district and a family with a child with a disability. Under IDEA, students are afforded an IEP, said Dia Jackson, senior researcher for special education, equity, and tiered systems of support at the American Institutes of Research.

IEPs spell out what area a student has a disability in, how it impacts learning, and what the school will do to address those needs, such as providing speech or occupational therapy, more intensive instructional supports, and accommodations, including for standardized tests and other learning goals.

The number of IEPs is increasing in schools as conditions, like autism spectrum disorder, or ADHD, are being diagnosed more readily.

All students with disabilities are protected under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires schools to make “reasonable accommodation” for students with disabilities.

Educators don’t have to make specially designed instruction plans under a 504, but students can get certain accommodations, like elevator passes if a student is in a wheelchair, Jackson said.

“It’s a slightly different focus, but both play out in schools,” Jackson said.

Individualized family services plans , or IFSPs, are developed for children up to age 3 who need help with communication, social-emotional skills, and physical needs, Strassfeld said.

Like an IEP, the plan is made in collaboration with a parent or guardian, along with professionals such as a child care provider, religious leaders, or doctors. The document outlines a plan for families to help seek services—such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, medical services, and more—but is focused more on the family’s goals rather than strictly educational goals, Strassfeld said.

“While they’re focusing on pre-education goals, primarily at that age, we’re thinking about that child as being a part of a component of a family,” she said.

The right to a Free Appropriate Public Education , or FAPE , means that for every IDEA-eligible student, services must be provided at no cost to the student or their family, must be appropriate for the needs of the child, and have to be education oriented, Strassfeld said.

With FAPE, there is also the concept of least restrictive environment, or LRE, Jackson said. Students should be included to the fullest extent possible in mainstream classrooms and be challenged but appropriately supported, alongside their general education peers.

That’s not without its challenges, however, Strassfeld said.

“IDEA essentially is premised on the philosophical notion that it is that easy. It’s a real challenge for school districts,” she said, adding that as parents and advocates examine special education through disability justice and disability studies lenses, there are more critiques of the model.

Jackson said that she’s heard criticism along these lines: When students with disabilities aren’t prepared for a general education environment, or when general education teachers don’t have training on special education.

Response to intervention , or RTI , came as an amendment to IDEA in 2004 to help earlier identify students who are struggling before they begin failing, Jackson said, and begin giving them additional support through a tiered process. Generally, all students receive “tier I” instruction on grade-level standards. Then, students who need additional help get more intensive supports. That could look like a teacher working one-on-one, or in small groups, helping target specific areas to improve learning.

Intervention is an evidence-based program meant to address a specific learning or social-emotional need. It can be done in a general education classroom, and looks like regular teaching, Jackson said, but it uses particular materials and involves collecting data on progress.

The term RTI has evolved into multitiered system of supports , or MTSS , which is also a preventative framework, but goes beyond academics to consider the infrastructure districts need to implement MTSS, Jackson said.

“The shift to MTSS is meant to be more inclusive of the infrastructure as well as inclusive of social-emotional learning as well as academics,” she said.

A functional behavior assessment , or FBA , is a way for educators to collect data on student behavior, and what is triggering certain unwanted behavior, Jackson said.

For instance, she said, if a teacher has a student who has autism and, when they get upset, they throw a chair, an FBA could be conducted.

Once that analysis is collected, a behavior intervention plan , or BIP , is developed, describing what the behavior is, how often it happens, and what will be done to address it.

FBAs and BIPs are not without concerns, however, as students with disabilities—especially students of color—are more likely to face exclusionary discipline, such as suspension and expulsion.

“A lot of times, it is a subjective judgment call if a student is exhibiting ‘appropriate behavior’ or not,” Jackson said. “There’s a lot of potential bias that goes into discipline of students and behavior management.”

It’s one example of disproportionality , where an ethnic or racial group is over- or under-represented in certain areas. For instance, Jackson said, students of color with disabilities are over-represented in discipline, on being identified as having a disability, and being placed in more restrictive environments.

Restraint and seclusion are practices used in public schools as a response to student behavior that limits their movement and aims to deescalate them, by either physically limiting their movement (restraint) or isolating them from others (seclusion), according to previous EdWeek reporting .

The practice of physically restraining students with disabilities or placing them in isolation has been heavily scrutinized, but is still used in some states.

It should only be used in extreme cases when a student is at risk to harm themselves or others, Jackson said, but never as a behavior management technique, or as punishment. Students have been harmed, or even killed, as a result of restraints , Jackson said. Students of color are over-represented in the population who are restrained and isolated, Jackson added.

Even still, there are educators who don’t want to see the practices completely banned, Jackson said.

“Teachers have been hurt by students or they’ve been hurt in the midst of a restraint so they still want to have the option available,” she said. “It’s an issue of not having training in another alternative, so they feel like: ‘This is the only way I can handle this particular student, or type of student, because I don’t know anything else.’”

Strassfeld said that there’s been more focus on the practice alongside excessive force in law enforcement.

“There’s been discussion that disability advocates have had about criminalization of behaviors that a person has no control over, and this type of force seems to deny the humanity of people who perhaps are exhibiting behaviors they are not able to control,” she said.

Education Issues, Explained

Vanessa Solis, Associate Design Director contributed to this article.

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

• Publications

Toggle navigation

ACE Releases 2024 Update to Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education Project May 21, 2024

As the diversity of the U.S. population increased, more Hispanic and Latino, Black and African American students have enrolled in undergraduate programs over the last 20 years, according to data outlined in the report. However, completion rates have not risen accordingly—the number of Hispanic or Latino students earning bachelor’s degrees rose about 10 percent from 2002 to 2022, while the rates for white and Asian students grew even faster, widening the existing gaps.

Black or African American students consistently had lower completion rates than those of any other racial and ethnic group. Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, and American Indian or Alaska Native students earned a larger share of associate degrees and certificates, while bachelor’s degrees are mainly earned by Asian, White, and multiracial students.

“Despite some progress, racial disparities are still alarmingly high, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-conscious admissions,” stated Ted Mitchell, the president of ACE. “This report is timely for everyone involved in higher education—administrators, researchers, policymakers. It allows us to examine the current state of race and ethnicity in higher education and strive to bridge these equity gaps.”

The data also reveal disparities in how students pay for college, with Black or African American undergraduate students borrowing at the highest rates across all sectors and income groups (49.7 percent). Hispanic or Latino and Asian students borrowed at lower-than-average rates. However, Asian students borrowed the highest amount per borrower when including parent loans.

Additionally, the report provides a look at the diversity of faculty and staff across race and ethnicity. In 2021, 69.4 percent of all full-time faculty and 56.2 percent of newly hired full-time faculty were White, compared to Black or African American full-time faculty (6.1 percent) and new full-time faculty (9.3 percent).

“This report is just one of the ways ACE is working to democratize data by creating accessible and actionable insights that empower evidence-inspired decision-making across the postsecondary landscape,” said Hironao Okahana, assistant vice president and executive director of ACE’s Education Futures Lab. “This work bolsters our engagement in the data ecosystem, such as our partnership with the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, to strengthen and lead the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI ) and the recently announced Global Data Consortium Initiative.”

This status report builds on the findings from preceding publications in the Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education series. It presents 201 indicators drawn from eight data sources, most of which come from the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Census Bureau. The indicators present a snapshot of the most recent publicly available data, while others depict data over time. 

The Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: 2024 Status Report was made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. The accompanying website was generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

  Related

Rutgers to transform block of historic buildings into N.J. city’s new ‘Gateway’ in $60M project

• Published: May. 17, 2024, 11:21 a.m.

Rutgers-Camden's Cooper Street Gateway Project will transform vacant, 19th century buildings into facilities for students, faculty and the community, school officials said. Douglas Shelton

• Nyah Marshall | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Rutgers-Camden is overhauling a block of vacant, historic 19th-century buildings in a $60 million project to create new spaces for students, staff and the city’s community.

Developers broke ground on what Rutgers-Camden officials are calling the “ Cooper Street Gateway Project ,” campus officials announced last week.

The university plans to turn 14 vacant properties and empty lots along the 400 block of Cooper and Lawrence streets into a three-story facility to house parts of the campus’ Faculty of Arts & Sciences, which is currently located in separate buildings.

Contractors will also renovate homes on Lawrence Street into offices and guest accommodations for visiting faculty and create a shared outdoor space.

The plans also include a gathering space for all Rutgers students, staff and Camden residents, officials said.

“This project represents a substantial investment in the future of our institution, our students, and the people of Camden,” Rutgers–Camden Chancellor Antonio D. Tillis said during the groundbreaking ceremony.

“We are lifting shovels today to officially launch this transformation of Cooper Street,” Tillis said.

Construction is expected to be completed by 2026, officials said.

Cooper Street, which stretches from Second to Seventh streets in Camden, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

The street was named in the late 1700s after a family that operated a ferry connecting South Jersey to Philadelphia before any bridges were built in the area. According to its National Register of Historic Places application, the district was recognized for its unique architecture and because it reflects a significant transitional period in American history.

The area was once a thriving neighborhood. Many of the homes still standing on the street today were built in the 19th century and are now owned or have been renovated by Rutgers-Camden.

Vacant buildings along the 400 block of Lawrence Street in Camden in the area where Rutgers-Camden's planned Gateway will be. Google Maps

On the 300 block of Cooper Street, Dr. Henry Genet Taylor, the founder of Camden’s first hospital, built a three-story home where he ran his medical practice on the ground floor. Rutgers purchased the building in 2001 and it reopened as the Writers House in 2015 .

When Tillis announced the Cooper Street Gateway Project in 2022, he said its goal was to first preserve the historical nature of the Cooper Street buildings. While some dilapidated structures will be destroyed, the intention is to maintain the historic essence of the neighborhood, he said.

“Since the buildings within this proposal are part of the Cooper Street Historic District, we approach this project with respect and reverence for the rich history of Cooper Street and the and the people of Camden,” Tillis said.

Rutgers and Camden officers attend the Cooper Street Gateway Project groundbreaking ceremony on May 10. Ron Downes Jr.

Stories by Nyah Marshall

• 60 roosters with razor blades attached to their wings sent to shocked N.J. animal rescue
• N.J.’s largest school district adding 7K security cameras powered by AI
• N.J. family raising money for funeral of 22-year-old killed while riding electric scooter

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Nyah Marshall may be reached at [email protected] .

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.