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1. Growing Our PEARLS and ASSETS Through a Support Ecosystem for Low-Income Academically Talented Students

   Lopez_del_Puerto, Carla; Jimenez, Manuel; Alfaro, Monica; Bellido, Carmen; Cafaro, Matias J (October 2024, 2024 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference)

   This research to practice paper describes two NSF-funded projects: The “Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success” (PEARLS) and the “Academic and Socioemotional Support Ecosystem for Talented low-income STEM Students” (ASSETS). These initiatives aim to support low-income, academically talented students pursuing STEM degrees, offering academic, socio-emotional, and financial assistance. Both projects provide mentoring, workshops, mental health services, and scholarships. Outcomes have shown increased engagement, retention, and graduation rates among participants compared to non-participants. Retention and persistence rates among PEARLS participants reached 97% and 96.3% respectively, showcasing the model effectiveness in keeping students focused on their studies. Graduation rates saw remarkable improvements, with on-time graduation rates soaring to 4.17 times that of non-participating students. The paper presents a robust framework for an integrated support ecosystem, emphasizing scalability and replicability across diverse institutions. By addressing the challenges faced by underprivileged students during environmental crises, this framework aims to foster equity and inclusion in higher education, ensuring all students have the support they need to succeed. 

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2. Equitable Access for Secondary English Learner Students: Course Taking as Evidence of EL Program Effectiveness

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X16648190  

   Callahan, Rebecca M.; Shifrer, Dara (August 2016, Educational Administration Quarterly)

   null (Ed.)

   Purpose: English learner (EL) education policy has long directed schools to address EL students’ linguistic and academic development without furthering inequity or segregation. The recent Every Student Succeeds Act reauthorization expresses a renewed focus on evidence of equity, effectiveness, and opportunity to learn. We propose that high school course taking patterns provide evidence of program effectiveness and equity in access. Research Design: Using data from the nationally representative Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, we employ multinomial regression models to predict students’ likelihood of completing two types of high school coursework (basic graduation, college preparatory) by their linguistic status. Findings: Despite considerable linguistic, sociodemographic, and academic controls, marked disparities in high school course taking patterns remain, with EL students experiencing significantly less academic exposure. Implications for Policy and Practice: Building on McKenzie and Scheurich’s notion of an equity trap and evidence of a long-standing EL opportunity gap, we suggest that school leaders might use our findings and their own course taking patterns to prompt discussions about the causes and consequences of local EL placement processes. Such discussions have the potential to raise awareness about how educators and school leaders approach educational equity and access, key elements central to the spirit of EL education policy. 

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3. A meta-analysis of community engaged learning and thriving in higher education

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1525176  

   Guanlao, Rachel; Pax, Jennifer; Wei, Yufeng; Zhang, Wei (June 2025, Frontiers in Education)

   IntroductionCommunity Engaged Learning (CEL) is recognized for its positive impact on student development in higher education. This meta-analysis examined the effects of CEL on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes among college students. MethodsStudies were identified through PsycINFO, PsycArticles, and ERIC, and were included if they met the following criteria: peer-reviewed English-language publications from 2017 to 2024, alignment with widely accepted definitions of CEL, inclusion of a control group, and sufficient data to calculate effect sizes. Random-effects models were used to estimate Hedges's g, a standardized measure of effect size, for each outcome domain. ResultsOur results showed that CEL had a statistically significant, small to medium effect on academic outcomes (Hedges'sg= 0.344, 95% CI [0.190, 0.497],p< 0.001) and social outcomes (Hedges'sg= 0.371, 95% CI [0.167, 0.575],p< 0.001). The effect on citizenship outcomes was small but significant (Hedges'sg= 0.220, 95% CI [0.096, 0.344],p= 0.001). For personal outcomes, the effect was moderate (Hedges'sg= 0.694, 95% CI [−0.089, 1.477]) but not statistically significant (p= 0.082). The substantial variability observed across studies suggests that differences in CEL implementation, program focus, and student populations may influence outcomes. ConclusionOverall, our findings highlight CEL as an impactful pedagogy that contributes to academic success, personal growth, and civic engagement. Further research may explore the long-term impacts of CEL and identify specific program components that enhance its effectiveness. 

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4. Long-Term Outcomes of RET Programs on Female and Minority Student High School Graduation Rates and Undergraduate STEM Major Rates (Fundamental)

   Nichol, C.; Crawford, C. A.; Barr, C.; Cerda, I. (January 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs are National Science Foundation (NSF) funded programs designed to provide K- 12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teachers with immersive, hands-on research experiences at Universities around the country. The NSF RET in nanotechnology encourages teachers to translate cutting-edge research into culturally relevant Project-Based Learning (PjBL) and engineering curriculum. Traditionally, the evaluation of RET programs focuses on the growth and development of teacher self-efficacy, engineering content knowledge gains, or classroom implementation of developed curriculum materials. However, reported methods for evaluating the impact of RETs on their female, minority student populations' high school graduation and undergraduate STEM major rates are limited. This study's objective was to compare RET high school student graduation rates and undergraduate STEM major rates across gender, race, and ethnicity to a comparison sample to determine the RET program's long-term impact on students' likelihood of pursuing STEM careers. The approach of collecting and analyzing the Texas Education Research Center Database (EdRC) data is a novel methodology for assessing RET programs' effectiveness on students. The EdRC is a repository of K-12 student data from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Higher Education data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). This joint database contains demographic, course registration, graduation, standardized testing, and college major, among others, for all students that attended a K-12 public school in Texas and any college in Texas, public or private. The RET program participants at Rice University (2010 – 2018) taught numerous students, a sample size of 11,240 students. A propensity score matching generated the student comparison group within the database. Students' school campus, gender, race/ethnic status, and English proficiency status were applied to produce a graduation comparison sample size of 11,240 students of Non-RET participants. Linking the TEA database to the THECB database resulted in college STEM participants and comparison sample sizes of 4,029 students. The project team conducted a logistic regression using RET status to predict high school graduation rates as a whole and by individual variables: gender, Asian American, Black, Caucasian, and Latinx students. All models were significant at p less than 0.05, with models in favor of students RET teachers. The project team conducted a logistic regression using RET status to predict student STEM undergraduate major rates as a whole and by individual variables: Gender, Asian American, Black, Caucasian, and Latinx students. African American and Caucasian models were significant at p less than 0.05; Gender, Asian American, and Latinx models were marginally significant (0.05 less than p greater than 0.1), where RET students had higher STEM major rates than matched controls. The findings demonstrate that RET programs have a long-term positive impact on the students' high school graduation rates and undergraduate STEM major rates. As teachers who participate in the RET programs are more likely to conduct courses using PjBL strategies and incorporate real-world engineering practices, female and minority students are more likely to benefit from these practices and seek careers utilizing these skills. 

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5. Long-Term Exposure to Neighborhood Policing and the Racial/Ethnic Gap in High School Graduation

   Legewie, Joscha; Cricco, Nino José (January 2022, Demography)

   Researchers increasingly explore the consequences of policing for the educational outcomes of minority youth. This study contributes to this literature by asking: First, what are racial/ethnic disparities in long-term exposure to neighborhood policing? Second, how does this exposure affect high school graduation? Third, how much of the ethnoracial gap in high school graduation would remain if neighborhood policing was equalized? To address these questions, we use data from the New York City Department of Education and follow five cohorts of NYC public school students from middle to high school. Our findings reveal starkly different experiences with neighborhood policing across racial/ethnic groups. Using novel methods for time-varying treatment effects, we find that long-term exposure to neighborhood policing has negative effects on high school graduation with important differences across racial/ethnic groups. Using gap- closing estimands, we show that assigning a sample of Black and Latino students to the same level of neighborhood policing as white students would close the Black-white gap in high school graduation by more than one quarter and the Latino-white gap by almost one fifth. Alternatively, we explore interventions where policing is solely a function of violent crime, which close the Black-white gap by as much as one-tenth. Our study advances previous research by focusing on cumulative, long-term exposure to neighborhood policing and by assessing various counterfactual scenarios that inform research and policy. Keywords: Policing, Education, Inequality, Neighborhoods, Racial Disparities 

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