Elementary and Secondary Education

In the Media

Jacob questions efficiency in the use of tech in classrooms

Jan 22, 2025 The Wall Street Journal

The Ford School's Brian Jacob recently spoke with The Wall Street Journal regarding his 2023 research survey on the use of technology in classrooms. Jacob's survey was conducted among 1,000 educators and showed technology is used for completing...

Jacob questions efficiency in the use of tech in classrooms

Publication

Beating the odds: Students at Detroit public schools are less depressed, anxious

Nov 11, 2024

The share of 8th-12th grade students reporting depression and anxiety symptoms fell below pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23 in the Detroit Public School Community District—which is the opposite of national trends.The most substantial improvements were...

Beating the odds: Students at Detroit public schools are less depressed, anxious

In the Media

How did the pandemic change schooling?

Sep 4, 2024 American Enterprise Institute: The Report Card Podcast

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brian Jacob about the ways in which the pandemic changed the grammar of schooling. Nat and Brian discuss the pandemic’s effects on student technology use, parent-teacher communication, and...

Brian Jacob on The Report Card Podcast: How Did the Pandemic Change Schooling?

Publication

Youth Policy Lab explores the impact of family engagement with educational technology

Aug 12, 2024

Family support for young learners—both during school and outside of school hours—can be crucial for developing key academic skills like reading. Gauging family support can be difficult, though, especially when multiple languages are involved, but...

Youth Policy Lab explores the impact of family engagement with educational technology

Press Release

Paper explores impact of family engagement with educational technology

Jul 24, 2024

ANN ARBOR — Family support for young learners — both during school and outside of school hours — can be crucial for developing key academic skills like reading. Gauging family support can be difficult, though, especially when multiple languages are...

News

Ford School researchers to study Michigan’s education governance

May 1, 2024

In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), a team of researchers from the Ford School will conduct a study into how Michigan’s education governance system can be improved for the benefit of public school students.“An effective...

Ford School researchers to study Michigan’s education governance

In the Media

How the Flint water crisis set schoolchildren back

Mar 13, 2024 The Washington Post

School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, according to a study released Wednesday, showing the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of children.The...

Flint residents voice their concerns at Flint City Hall water meeting. Photo credit: Sam Owens

News

School enrollment during COVID-19: U-M study reveals racial disparities

Feb 21, 2024

Student enrollment in districts that provided in-person schooling in fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic showed a greater decline among nonwhite students than white students.But in districts that offered virtual learning, the opposite was true,...

School enrollment during COVID-19: U-M study reveals racial disparities

In the Media

Students’ math outcomes have plummeted. Here’s what to do

Jan 2, 2024 Education Week

Math education across the country is in urgent need of redesign, and recent NAEP scores confirm there is no time to waste, with students showing the largest decline in math scores for 4th and 8th graders since 1990.Recent findings from the EdWeek...

$Two pencils lying next to a calculator$

Press Release

Chancellor David C. Banks announces new cohort of Next Generation Community Schools backed by partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation

Nov 6, 2023

NEW YORK, NY- Chancellor David C. Banks today announced that 20 Community Schools have been selected to participate in the Next Generation Community Schools (NGCS) pilot program. The K-8 pilot program is supported through the Robin Hood Foundation...

Chancellor David C. Banks announced that 20 Community Schools have been selected to participate in the Next Generation Community Schools (NGCS) pilot program. The K-8 pilot program is supported through the Robin Hood Foundation in the form of a $5.5 million grant over the course of three years. The Next Generation Community Schools Pilot Program integrates a high-quality, rigorous academic experience into the community school model in twenty K-5 and K-8 schools across the city.

State & Hill

COVID-19 and education: A tough time for all

Dec 19, 2022

Ford School education researchers look for answers By Shaun Manning From early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered public education in the United States. Many schools introduced remote learning for at least part of the 2020-2021...

COVID-19 and education: A tough time for all

News

Jacob breaks down increasing importance of school board elections

Oct 23, 2022

With midterms quickly approaching, school board races are getting increasing attention. Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, explained to WWMT Channel 3. “School boards I think even before COVID had started being more...

Jacob finds little benefit, large costs to pretrial juvenile detention

News

U-M Youth Policy Lab and TRAILS to study effectiveness of student mental health programming

Aug 18, 2022

The University of Michigan’s Youth Policy Lab (YPL) and TRAILS (Transforming Research into Action to Improve the Lives of Students) have been awarded a $3.8 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The...

U-M Youth Policy Lab and TRAILS to study effectiveness of student mental health programming

In the Media

Meet the Mathfluencers: Teachers are turning to TikTok to sharpen kids’ math skills

Jun 3, 2022 The Information

Sixth graders at Polly Ryon Middle School in Richmond, Tex., clamored to get into a certain math class at the beginning of the last school year. That’s not because they’d heard rumors that the class was easy or that they’d get to watch a lot of...

$A teacher projecting a tiktok math video in class to capture student attention$

News

Math games: High 5s program brings the 'math out of play'

Apr 11, 2022

TAYLOR—While groups of first graders work in clusters at pods around the classroom, four children face their teacher at a U-shaped desk, backs straight and eyes alert as she deals cards to each of them. They're playing "Chocolate Chip Count," a...

Math games: High 5s program brings the 'math out of play'

In the Media

How will making daylight saving time permanent affect the economy?

Mar 16, 2022 Marketplace

Most Americans recently set their clocks forward by an hour for daylight saving time, making our evenings brighter and mornings darker.But the biannual change to our clocks may end now that the Senate has passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which...

Publication

YPL study calls for mental health training and support of DPSCD staff

Mar 7, 2022

Schools are a promising setting for mental health services – they meet students where they are, surrounded by adults that they trust. Yet more research is needed to determine the most effective way to deliver those services within schools. In a...

YPL study calls for mental health training and support of DPSCD staff

In the Media

Jacob weighs in on chronic absenteeism

Feb 27, 2022 Chillicothe Gazette

Across the country, schools are struggling with chronic absenteeism. Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, weighed in on the issue. "Even before we figure out if we should improve the curriculum, at the basic level you...

In the Media

Jacob discusses chronic absenteeism fueled by pandemic

Feb 20, 2022 The Columbus Dispatch

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the nation are struggling with rising absenteeism rates. Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, weighed in on the issue. "There was a once-in-a-century global public...

In the Media

How social and emotional learning became a priority for schools during the pandemic

Jan 12, 2022 The 74

Social and emotional learning has become very important for schools as students adjust to the many changes they have had to endure during the pandemic. According to Robin Jacob, co-director of the Youth Policy Lab, Detroit students were experiencing...

News

YPL co-director-led project to receive $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education

Dec 15, 2021

Over a five-year period, Reading Partners and third-party education program evaluator, MDRC, will receive $8 million in Education Innovation and Research (EIR) funding through the U.S. Department of Education in order to expand Reading Partners’...

YPL co-director-led project to receive $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education

In the Media

These early math supports translated to gains later on for vulnerable students

Dec 10, 2021 Education Week

Immediate academic gains from early-childhood programs often fade as children move into upper elementary school. But a new study suggests math supports in the earliest grades may build on each other over years to create longer-term benefits in math...

$A teacher giving 1:1 math tutoring to an elementary student$

News

Pre-COVID, more than half of Detroit students felt anxious or depressed, 1 in 4 considered suicide

Jun 10, 2021

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, serious mental health concerns impacted a significant portion of students in Detroit public schools, a new report shows.More than half of student respondents in the Detroit Public Schools Community District had...

YPL report: Pre-COVID, more than half of Detroit students felt anxious or depressed, 1 in 4 considered suicide

Publication

Career and technical education offers pathways for students with disabilities in Michigan

May 13, 2021

Career and Technical Education (CTE) could offer one way of bolstering educational attainment among and providing valuable job skills to students with disabilities (SWD). A new release by the Youth Policy Lab at the Ford School looks at CTE...

Career and technical education offers pathways for students with disabilities in Michigan

News

More harm than good? Professor Brian Jacob criticizes the continued turnover of accountability systems for Michigan schools

Jan 18, 2019

During the waning days of 2018, a lame-duck session of the Michigan legislature voted to implement a new letter-grade apparatus for evaluating Michigan school performance. The implementation of a new accountability system may cause more headaches...

More harm than good? Professor Brian Jacob criticizes the continued turnover of accountability systems for Michigan schools

News

Professor Brian Jacob says Michigan student-teacher ratio is higher than reported estimations

Sep 28, 2018

As education in Michigan falls under ever greater scrutiny, one glaring issue seems to stand out: the state’s lopsided student-teacher ratio. One of the highest ratios in the nation, Ford School professor Brian Jacob believes the issue is even worse...

News

Slight improvement in Michigan education statistics not enough says Brian Jacob

Sep 21, 2018

After the release of the 2018 M-STEP (Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress) scores, the outlook on education in Michigan seems rather bleak, Jennifer Chambers reports in her August 29th, 2018 Detroit News article. Despite nominal increases...

News

Jacob in Brookings: Causes, consequences, and potential solutions for chronic absenteeism

Jul 31, 2017

In a July 27 “Evidence Speaks” column for the Brookings Institution, Brian Jacob and Kelly Lovett discuss “Chronic absenteeism: An old problem in search of new answers.”During the 2013-14 academic year, the authors report that 14 percent of students...

Jacob in Brookings: Causes, consequences, and potential solutions for chronic absenteeism

News

Brian Jacob on student test scores—how they’re assembled and why that matters

Aug 16, 2016

In “Student test scores: How the sausage is made and why you should care,” Brian Jacob describes how student ability is measured; how various test makers analyze and report student performance; and why this matters for policymakers and practitioners...

News

For Brookings, Brian Jacob describes "the opportunities and challenges of digital learning"

May 6, 2016

On the 20th anniversary of the publication of his first op-ed on the use of classroom computers, Brian Jacob, who is engaged in several digital learning research initiatives, explores “The opportunities and challenges of digital learning.” Jacob’s...