Resources

50-State Comparison: Teacher License Reciprocity

Teacher license reciprocity allows educators who hold a teaching license in one state to earn a license in another state, subject to meeting state-specific requirements. Reciprocity agreements allow states to work through variations in licensing systems to coordinate license transfers and fill vacant teaching positions with qualified candidates. Most states have policies in place to extend reciprocity for certain teachers, but few states provide full reciprocity for all fully licensed teachers from other states.

Supporting Students to be Independent Learners: State and District Actions for the Pandemic Era

In May 2020, the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program shared ten recommended state actions for Fostering Connectedness in the Pandemic Era that were developed with a diverse group of education leaders. The pandemic and resulting closure of school buildings have revealed the deep inequities that already existed in many schools, and connectedness is one of those gaps. Data from school climate surveys demonstrates that students of color, English-learners, and students from low-income families do not feel safe at school, in part because they do not have the kind of caring, trusted relationships that create belonging – and in part because they do not feel challenged with meaningful, rigorous work.

Finding the Goldilocks Zone in Policy Influence: Five Considerations for Funders Seeking to Get It “Just Right”

A Higher Ed Funder Pivots, Recognizing Racial Inequity as its Biggest Barrier

What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings Across States and Metropolitan Areas

Deciding whether to invest time and money in higher education is among the most important decisions that a young adult can make. The evidence is clear that workers who went to college earn higher incomes, on average, than those without a post-secondary degree. But considering the variations in different geographic areas, do workers in some parts of the country do about as well with two-year degrees as those with bachelor’s degrees?

This first-of-its-kind study looks beyond the national averages, comparing mean earnings for full-time workers with different levels of education in all 50 states and D.C., in over 100 metro areas, and in rural America using individual-level data for the years 2015 through 2017 from the American Community Survey (ACS).

Policy Influence: What Foundations are Doing and Why

Foundations’ engagement in public policy has contributed to advances in society in areas from civil rights to consumer protections to public health. At the same time, and with greater intensity in recent years, the role of philanthropy in influencing policy has been the subject of scrutiny.

And yet little data is available about how many foundations engage in efforts to influence public policy, why they undertake this work, and how they approach it. So CEP studied the perspective of foundation leaders across the country on this topic. Based on survey responses from 214 foundation leaders and in-depth interviews with CEOs and staff at 43 foundations, as well as survey responses from 419 nonprofit leaders on CEP’s Grantee Voice panel, Policy Influence: What Foundations Are Doing and Why shares what we learned.