The Learning Curve is a series of data-driven essays on timely education policy topics intended to inform and empower decision makers at the federal, state, and local levels. Data and code are provided whenever possible so readers can dig deeper into the issues important to them. New essays are published every other Thursday. To stay up to date on the latest research, sign up for our newsletter.
We are currently looking for analyses of policies that have been enacted in the past 10 years with the goal of increasing equity in PK–12 or higher education. Authors should think of the Learning Curve essay as an early look at the policy’s possible effects, providing available data in a timely fashion and analyses of these policies can consider whether they accomplished their intended aims and whether they had unintended consequences. Policies enacted with the goal of increasing equity include (1) those at any level (local, state, or federal) that have the explicit intent of narrowing disparities in educational outcomes by race or ethnicity, gender, disability status, or other student characteristics or (2) those that otherwise address concerns about disparate treatment of different groups of students. Additional details about the call for proposals can be found here.
Selected authors will receive a $2,500 honorarium and technical and editorial support from Urban Institute staff members to turn their proposal into an essay published on urban.org. Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with a final deadline of Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Review criteria will include the proposal’s originality, feasibility, and relevance to policy. The proposal form can be found here.
If you have an idea for an essay or a question about a published essay, check out our contributor's guidelines, and then email us at [email protected].
Early education
- November 2021: Examining the landscape of prekindergarten programs (Michael Little)
- April 2022: State Policies Shape the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the Prekindergarten Workforce (Erica Greenberg, Grace Luetmer)
K-12
- November 2021: The implications of expanding the Community Eligibility Program to states (Emily Gutierrez)
- November 2021: The distribution of police officers and social workers in schools (Mauro Ampie)
- December 2021: Comparing student outcomes at Catholic schools and other nonpublic schools in Florida (David Figlio)
- January 2022: Support for Mask and Vaccine Policies in Schools Falls along Racial and Political Lines (Dan Silver, Michael Fienberg, Morgan Polikoff)
- February 2022: Documenting Inequitable Patterns in Spending by Parent Teacher Associations, Parent Teacher Organizations, and “Friends of” Fundraising Groups at Illinois Public Schools (Claire Mackevicius)
- February 2022: The Leaky Pipeline of Advanced Placement Testing - Essay (Kristen Hengtgen, Kimberly Lent Morales)
- February 2022: The Leaky Pipeline of Advanced Placement Testing - Interactive Map (Kristen Hengtgen, Kimberly Lent Morales)
- March 2022: Disparities in Advanced Placement Course Enrollment and Test Taking: National and State-Level Perspectives (Paula Kim-Christian, Logan McDermott)
- March 2022: The Impact of Rural and Urban School Reopening on Missouri Students (Andrew Diemer, Aaron Park)
- March 2022: Regional and Grade-Level Patterns of Pandemic Enrollment Declines in Hawai`i Public Schools (Mark Murphy, Kiley Oeda)
- April 2022: COVID-19 and the System Resilience of Public Education: A View from North Carolina (Thurston Domina, Ayesha Hashim, Caitlin Kearney, Lam Pham, Cole Smith)
- May 2022: In the Strike Zone: New Data to Contextualize the Recent Surge in Teacher Strikes (Melissa Arnold Lyon)
- June 2022: Leveraging Nuanced Data to Inform Research and Policy for Immigrant Students and Families (Kristin Blagg, Marguerite Lukes)
- June 2022: Both Supply and Demand for COVID-Related Academic and Social Interventions Are Insufficient to Address the Negative Effects of the Pandemic (Morgan Polikoff, Dan Silver)
- July 2022: The Students Alternative Schools Serve (Adam Kho, Sarah Rabovsky)
- September 2022: Which Students Are We Counting? A Descriptive Analysis of Student Characteristics and Data Availability of US Territories and Commonwealths (Wendy Castillo)
- September 2022: The Availability of Truancy Data across States (Ericka S. Weathers, David Loeb)
- October 2022: More Money on Learning, Less Learning Loss? Variations in How Rhode Island Districts Spent Federal COVID Relief Funding (Xiaoyang Ye)
- December 2022: Will the Virginia Governor’s Push for Higher Expectations on State Tests Affect Student Learning? (Matthew Chingos)
- February 2023: Where the Kids Went: Nonpublic Schooling and Demographic Change during the Pandemic Exodus from Public Schools (Thomas S. Dee)
- March 2023: Adequately Funding Low-Income Students: Options for Michigan Policymakers (Jeremy Singer)
- April 2023: Unequal Exposure to School Resource Officers, by Student Race, Ethnicity, and Income (Sagen Kidane, Emily Rauscher)
- May 2023: Do Active-Shooter Drills Hurt Students? (Elc Estrera)
Higher education
- December 2021: The COVID-19 pandemic changed which types of colleges offered test-optional admissions (Darrell Lovell, Daniel Mallinson)
- March 2022: Analyzing the Landscape of Reentry Services for Formerly Incarcerated Californians in Higher Education (Elif Yucel)
- May 2022: The Fine Print on Free College: Who Benefits from New York’s Excelsior Scholarship? (Judith Scott-Clayton, CJ Libassi, Daniel Sparks)
- May 2022: How Should Federal Policymakers Hold Short-Term Credential Programs Accountable (Kathryn Blanchard)
- July 2022: A Closer Look at College Affordability: The Link between Living Allowances and Student Debt (CJ Libassi, Zachary Mabel)
- October 2022: Trends in Enrollment Growth at Public Flagship Universities (Joydeep Roy, Jingyi Su)
- November 2022: Exploring the Relationship between Student Loan Forgiveness, the Pell Bonus, and Race (Bryan J. Cook, Alexandra Tilsley)
- November 2022: Tuition-to-Earnings Limits: An Alternative to the Gainful Employment Rule for Higher Education Accountability (Jason D. Delisle, Jason Cohn)
- January 2023: How Were Student Loan Borrowers Affected by the Pandemic? (Matthew Chingos, Jason Cohn)
- January 2023: Few College Students Will Repay Student Loans under the Biden Administration’s Proposal (Matthew Chingos, Jason D. Delisle, Jason Cohn)
- February 2023: As the Supreme Court Weighs Student Loan Forgiveness, Who Has Not Yet Applied? (Kristin Blagg, Elise Colin, Michael Karpman)
- March 2023: How Many Short-Term Training Programs Would Gain Access to Pell Grants under the New Proposal? (Jason Cohn)
- April 2023: How a Mandatory FAFSA Completion Policy in Texas Could Improve College Access (Sie Won Kim)