Max Pardo

In Indiana and Minnesota the state education agency, state higher education agency, and the state workforce agency have collaborated to develop career and technical education courses intended to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These agencies partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to examine whether high school graduates in each state who completed a large number of career and technical education courses in a single career-oriented program of stu...

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). This study identified the type of high school enrollment (type of high school and voucher status) among the student populations of four cohorts (who were in grade 9 in 2010/11--2013/14) and examined those students' performance on indicators of college and career readiness and early college success. ...

Leaders at the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Indiana Department of Education are concerned about teacher shortages and want a better understanding of the teacher pipeline for the state's K-12 public schools. This study tracked 11,080 students who first enrolled in an Indiana public college or university in 2010/11, 2011/12, or 2012/13 and pursued a bachelor's degree in education at any point in college. Among those entrants 41 percent completed a bachelor's degree in educati...

In Minnesota, as in many other states, not all students have access to the types of educational experiences in high school that are likely to lead to high-paying jobs. If Minnesota policymakers and practitioners are to be well positioned to reduce achievement gaps that lead to different career and college outcomes, they must have reliable data on the postsecondary pathways Minnesota public high school graduates take, as well as information about differences in pathways and outcomes for differ...

State and school district leaders in Michigan are concerned about the challenges some districts are facing in filling certain classroom teacher vacancies and about the harmful impact of teacher shortages on students, schools, and communities. They have asked for better and more comprehensive information on the existence and extent of teacher shortages in the state. Using data from the 2013/14-2017/18 school years, this study examined trends in teacher demand, supply, and shortages in Michigan...

REL Midwest conducted a systematic review of research on interventions that may improve academic outcomes for Black students. The review entailed a search for studies that provide evidence at Tier I (strong evidence), Tier II (moderate evidence), or Tier III (promising evidence) according to the Every Student Succeeds Act, and explicitly mention associations between an intervention and Black students' achievement in math or reading, dropout rates, or graduation rates. After screening 3,917 st...